2009 Whitehead Award
The Whitehead International Film Festival Jury gave the 2009 Whitehead Award to the American film, The Visitor, citing:
- Its effective use of music, both as background and foreground, to signal the shifts in character development;
- Its highlighting of changes in American hospitality from the Statue of Liberty’s generous welcome of immigrants on Ellis Island, to the parody of this symbol on the walls of a detention center where we forcibly send immigrants back;
- Its portrayal of the dignity of persons from a diversity of cultural, national, and racial backgrounds;
- Its effective demonstration of creative transformation through the main character’s interaction with immigrants, and its call to us individually and nationally to reconsider our relationships to those seeking wellbeing within our borders.
The Jury also gives Special Mention to the outstanding documentary, Heimatklaenge (Echoes of Home) for the way it demonstrates and elicits the music of the earth in all its intense and beautiful variety of forms.
Previous Award Winners
2008: Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
2007: Tsotsi
2006: The Syrian Bride
2005: Barbarian Invasions
2004: Gaz Bar Blues