NEW DELHI: Award-winning documentary Blood Brother by Steve Hoover which is partly based in Tamil Nadu was the opening film on 7 November at the 20th Ohio Independent Film Festival.
The film has earlier won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2013 Sundance Festival in Park City as well as Audience Award at Hot Docs and Best Feature at Big Sky in Montana among other accolades.
The film is about Rocky Braat a man from Pittsburgh who never really liked kids or hot weather but yet found himself immersed in the culture and heat of Tamil Nadu, caring for HIV/AIDS-afflicted orphans - and never wanting to return to the American life he once had.
Hailed as “a truly beautiful film about the power of love” and as “Exuberant, heartbreaking and transcendent”, Blood Brother depicts Rocky’s devotion to the children and endurance in the face of difficulties most would never even imagine and will shake viewers.
“’Blood Brother is a must-see,” said Therese Grida, Independent Pictures’ Board member and Selections Committee Chair. “The film was submitted to us in October, 2012 and has been working its way around the festival circuit since,” said Grida.
Director Steve Hoover’s debut feature is independently-produced, which means that it was not financed by any big studio. “This is the stuff we relish,” Grida said. Blood Brother is what independent filmmaking is all about.”
The Ohio Filmfest started out as the Off-Hollywood Flick Fest in 1992 and held its first screenings in 1993 in a small store in front of Tremont. While the name eventually changed to the Ohio Independent Film Festival, twenty years later the submission process remains the same.
Independent Pictures is also the proud parent of the Ohio Independent Screenplay Awards, the Film Production Training Program, the Director of Photography Workshop, Fiscal Agent Sponsorship Program and more. The mission of Independent Pictures supports emerging and independent filmmakers by giving a voice to those that might not otherwise be heard.
Independent Pictures and the Ohio Independent Film Festival are funded in part by grants from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and Ohio Arts Council, and by Community Shares, a workplace giving organization that supports social justice issues.
