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Last Tuesday June 17th, Beautiful Losers screened at the 10th annual CineVegas Film Festival. The burgeoning Las Vegas festival which “annually presents work by innovative, uninhibited, and renegade artists to an audience of local and national film lovers, journalists, and film industry representatives” was home to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars over the past week and a half. With honorees James Caan, Don Cheadle, Rosario Dawson and Viggo Mortensen, in town as well as fellow actors Dennis Hopper, Anjelica Huston, and Sam Rockwell in the mix, we were honored just to be a part of such a prestigious event.

We felt even more honored when we were asked back to accept one of the festival’s awards at a luncheon ceremony on Saturday. Not knowing what we were fortunate enough to win, Jon Barlow (the film’s producer) and I headed to the City of Sin with modest expectations for a brief 6 hour stay, just enough time to collect our wares and avoid any real Vegas trouble. We were hoping for an award like the Documentary Audience Award where the winner is chosen by votes the audience casts after screenings, but much to our surprise we were handed the Documentary Jury Award which is determined by a panel of fellow filmmakers! To be honored in this way is extremely special for us and has exceeded all our expectations.

This distinction, in addition to winning the Outstanding Achievement in Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival, has given our little Loser of a film a small taste of what it’s like to actually win.

The lovely Jo Jackson on the red carpet of the Beautiful Losers CineVegas premiere.

The Festival also screened The Cool School, a documentary similar to our film in that it follows the careers of artists who came together in a small LA gallery in the 50’s and 60’s. A panel discussion between the screenings of our films entitled Marginal: Art for its Own Sake featured a live conversation with a group of artists from both films, including Billy Al Bengston, Dave Hickey, Jo Jackson, Geoff McFetridge, Ed Moses, Stephen Powers (ESPO) and CineVegas chairman Dennis Hopper.

(photos courtesy of Jon Barlow)

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