SIFF 1999 Awards

The Golden Space Needle Awards (audience voted)

Best Film: Run Lola Run, directed by Tom Tykwer (runners up, in order: The Red Violin, Limbo, Earth, Say Youll Be Mine)

Best Director: John Sayles for Limbo (runners up, in order: Tom Tykwer for Run Lola Run, Deepa Mehta for Earth, Don McKellar for Last Night, Francois Girard for Last Night)

Best Actor: Rupert Everett, An Ideal Husband (runners up, in order: David Strathairn, Limbo, Hugo Weaving, Following, The Interview and Bedrooms and Hallways, Roshan Seth, Such a Long Journey, Alex Dimitriades, Head On)

Best Actress: Piper Laurie, The Mao Game (runners up, in order: Julianne Moore, An Ideal Husband, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Limbo, Helen Mirren, The Passion of Ayn Rand, Sandra Oh, Last Night)

Best Documentary: The Buena Vista Social Club, director Wim Wenders (runners up, in order: Ghengis Blues, Shadow Boxers, Regret to Inform, The Rabbit in the Moon)

Best Short Film: 12 Steps on the Road to Nowhere, directed by Jay Lowi (runners up, in order: Peep Show, The Girl with the Scissors, Quest For the Noble Desert Poodle, Tulip)

The American Independent Award (juried awards)

Dead Dogs, produced by Regge Bulman, directed by Clay Eide

Special Jury Prize:

Piper Laurie, for her performance in The Mao Game, produced by Jodi Leesley, Gail Niederhoffer, Josh Woodward, directed by Joshua Miller

New Directors Showcase Award (juried awards)

Patrice Toye, director of Rosie

Special Jury Prize:

Oskar Reif, director of The Bed and Torun Lian, director of Only Clouds Can Move the Stars.

Atom Short Film Award (juried)

Mutiny, directed by Henry Griffin

Honorable mention: In the Mirror of the Sky, directed by Carlos Salles

1999 Sean Axmaker SIFF Awards

Best Credits sequence: Pedro Almodovar meets Saul Bass in Between the Legs, a pop-art collage with echoes of Vertigo.

Most Audacious Audience Challenge: The warning “You have 30 seconds to leave the theater” near the conclusion of I Stand Alone, which prompted more than one filmgoer to comment: “Thats one of the few times such a warning has been completely earned.”

Biggest surprise guest appearance (on film): the star of the comic short Desserts was none other Jedi heartthrob Ewan McGregor.

Biggest surprise guest appearance (in person): one rumor proved completely true when Bruce Willis took to the stage with director Alan Rudolph and co-star Nick Nolte for the World Premiere of Breakfast of Champions, but the audience also hid a couple of special guests who simply and quietly watched the film. Composer Martin Denny and author Kurt Vonnegut were spotted at the screening but preferred to hang back.

Best Flying Body: Ikinai (though it still doesnt touch the battered dummy blown out of the car trunk in last years My Secret Cache)