April 2024

Salem Film Fest 2024 American Cinematographer Award

This year’s Salem Film Fest entries produced a very strong group of nominees that demonstrate why documentaries remain such a vital filmmaking genre. From its very first image, director Agniia Galdanova’s Queendom grabs the viewer’s attention with the surreal tableau of an older Russian woman, bundled up in the cold of a wintry landscape, as she escorts a tall, spindly figure who’s decked out in fetishistic attire and hobbling through the snow in high-heeled boots. It’s soon revealed that the unlikely pair are intent on doing a photo shoot in the midst of the frozen tundra....more