Best Actress
Zoë Weizenbaum, MISSING IN AMERICA
Best Actor
Danny Glover, MISSING IN AMERICA
Best Director
Gabrielle Savage Dockterman,
MISSING IN AMERICA
Angel Award for best film of the festival
MISSING IN AMERICA 

Film director Gabrielle Savage Dockterman of Angel Devil Productions, Carlisle, MA, traveled to Monaco for the International Premiere of MISSING IN AMERICA, at the Monaco International Film Festival held in the Principality of Monaco, Monte-Carlo, December 8-11, 2005. The film made a clean sweep winning Best Actress – Zoë Weizenbaum, Best Actor – Danny Glover, Best Director – Gabrielle Savage Dockterman, and the Angel Award for best film of the festival – MISSING IN AMERICA.

MISSING IN AMERICA screened on the festival’s opening day at the Theatre Princesse Grace, followed by a Q&A session with Dockterman. A gala V.I.P. champagne reception and dinner dance honoring the three opening films took place later that evening at the Hotel de Paris.

According to festival organizers, the purpose of the Monaco International Film Festival is to promote better quality entertainment with less visual violence. Their philosophy is to showcase quality films containing no gratuitous violence for a worldwide audience.

An international panel led by Prince Aimery de Polignac, France and Monaco, judged the film festival’s annual Angel Award competition. Angel Awards are presented to those films judged to convey the best messages of humanity, either for positive change, love or inner values, or for a new beginning of quality entertainment through adventure, suspense, comedy and romance. “Just to be invited to Monaco is an honor,” said Dockterman. At press time, IMAGINE learned that Dockterman had won the coveted Angel Award for Best Film.

Dockterman also recently traveled to the St. Louis International Film Festival to accept the Screen Actor’s Guild award for “Emerging Actress” on behalf of Amherst, MA teen, Zoë Weizenbaum, for her portrayal opposite Danny Glover in Dockterman’s debut feature film. That same weekend in Western Massachusetts, Weizenbaum accepted another award for “Best New England Actress,” after a screening of the film at the Northampton Film Festival. Dockterman received a call at midnight the next weekend from St. Louis to congratulate her for also winning the audience award for “New Filmmakers

Forum Emerging Director” at the festival’s awards ceremony on November 20.

“This is my first audience award,” Dockterman said at the time. “Audiences seem to respond well to the film, but it’s nice to have this confirmation.” The film scored highest in audience ratings of all films at the festival by first-time directors. This is the second award Dockterman has received for “Emerging Director,” having won that award earlier this year at the Woods Hole Film Festival.

According to Dockterman, MISSING IN AMERICA is a story about healing and forgiveness. Dockterman says she is proud to have been selected to show her film in a venue that celebrates non-violence in entertainment.   She says she believes the story will appeal to an international audience, as well as American viewers.   

“Even though MISSING IN AMERICA is about disenfranchised veterans of an American war that ended decades ago, it’s timely because we have soldiers coming home from war every day,” she said.  “World audiences want to know how Americans at home feel about what their country is doing overseas. They want to know how middle America feels about being at war, and if we learned any lessons from Vietnam.

Now that her first film has distribution, Dockterman is excited to start working on her next project. “I’d love to do my next project closer to home,” Dockterman said. “The new tax incentive bill in Massachusetts is very exciting for New England filmmakers who would like to work where they live.” Nancy L. Babine, co-writer on the film and Director of Development at Dockterman’s Angel Devil Productions, is pursuing scripts and co-productions for the company. 

MISSING IN AMERICA is scheduled for release on VHS and DVD across North America in January, 2006, by First Look Studios of Los Angeles, CA. New Films International of Beverly Hills, CA, is distributing to foreign territories. Sales of available ancillary rights are represented by Lantern Lane Entertainment, Calabasas, CA. 

Visit www.MissingInAmericaMovie.com for more information.