After a well-attended, two-day short film festival, Jared B. Callan’s “Dear Lady Joan” has been awarded the 2021 Memphis Film Prize.
Ten short films created in Memphis and Shelby County competed in the annual contest, which was canceled last year because of the pandemic. The winner was chosen by a combination of audience votes and the choices of a select jury of artists and industry figures. “Dear Lady Joan” is a story about an unemployed man, played by David Caffey, who tries his hand at internet scamming, to ironic results. Callan received a prize of $5,000, the largest, non-grant monetary award of any film festival in the Mid-South.
The festival also awarded two best performance citations. The winner for Best Actress was Lauren Lay for her turn as a woman trying to come to terms with an ambiguous relationship in Bala Boyd’s “Something Simple, Something True.”
The Best Actor winner was Daniel Aaron Harris as a disabled man who is menaced by a psychopath in “Clair de Lune” by director Daniel Lane Baker. After his win, Harris posted a statement on Facebook: “Making Memphis cinema history for the disability community! To those who identify, don’t give up, don’t try to fit in, get out here we need you!”
