La Fe'e Rouge, a short film created by Tashai Lovington and Robert Lughai of Mount Horeb, was declared the winner of the Audience Award in the Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival on Wednesday. Conducted by the PBS documentary program titled Independent Lens, the online festival launched in December 2006, with audience voting running through the end of last month. The award was announced two days ago, on Feb. 7.
"Independent Lens phoned and let us know," says Lovington, who makes up one half of Tarazod Films along with Robert Lughai. They create a variety of films under the Tarazod banner, with La Fe'e Rouge completed as their latest work in 2006. Billed as "a fantasy short which peers into the world of doll remakes," the film is based on Lovington's work with recreating the plastic figurines.
"We were thrilled," says Lovington of learning about the award. "We knew that we were up against some good films, so when we won, it was just fantastic."
La Fe'e Rouge also won Best Short Documentary last November at the Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival in Florida. Lovington and Lughai have submitted it to the Los Angeles and Seattle film festivals, and hope to learn in several months whether or not it was accepted. The film can be viewed here.
What's next for the pair? "We have two films going on right now," says Lovington. Their feature-length film Mad City Chickens -- about folks raising the birds in their backyard and other Midwestern Gallus gallus domesticus ephemera -- is in post-production. They also have a short film titled Full Moon Encounter -- an adaptation of an Edwardian short story -- in the development stage.
"We're hoping that because La Fe'e Rouge won two awards," Lovington says, "that it will generate interest in our films to come."