Telluride Film Fest: Inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar Award

09 Oct Telluride Film Fest: Inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar Award

The Telluride Film Festival recently announced its inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar Award. Damani Brissett is named the first recipient. For more information on the Film Fest and its student programs, go here. For more information on Milos and Facets Multimedia, please visit here. Our review of TFF 2019 here.

Presented by National Film Preserve LTD., the Telluride Film Festival (TFF), is pleased to announce the presentation of the inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar award.

The award was established by TFF before its 46th edition to honor the legacy of Facets Multimedia co-founder and former TFF Board President Milos Stehlik, who passed away in July 2019.

Milos’ longtime commitment to film exhibition and education, as well as to the Telluride Film Festival, made him a lifelong friend to students, cinephiles, and filmmakers, as a champion of cinema. Each year, one student who embodies Milos’ passion and humanist heart will now be chosen from the incoming Student Symposium class to receive the award. That student will receive travel, lodging, a stipend, and a student film pass. Now in its 32nd year, the Student Symposium, is open to 50 currently enrolled college and university students from around the globe, no matter their major. The primary requirement is a love of film.

This year’s recipient, Damani Brissett, is a student from State University of New York at Purchase. Damani will receive an internship with the Telluride Film Festival Education Programs in 2020, along with the experience of attending the 47th weekend.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Damani was selected by faculty from the Student Symposium Class of 2019. He says:

“As a child, I was taught many integrities of living, some of them being: understand self-respect, respect for community, empathy, and aim to empower those around you to do good, not only for themselves, but for others. These seeds of holistic approach to humanity were sown within me and my sister at an early age, quietly, in a little corner of Flatbush Brooklyn.”

Damani was raised by a single mother with a devotion to her family and community, stemming from her proud Jamaican lineage. He continues:

“Currently, as we face global dissensions on politics, ethics and consciousness altogether, I tend to revisit my origins to ascertain bearing on how to move forward. How can I, one studying filmmaker at SUNY Purchase College, work in the service of the people, with the people, in hopes to redefine systemic confines? I say, where there’s a will there’s a way, for that ‘I’ once took the form of Dr. King’s ‘Dream’, and that ‘I’ is sometimes all there needs to be, simply… a start somewhere.”

The Telluride Film Festival is honored to have Damani return next year to work with the TFF Education Programs and is proud to honor Milos’ legacy annually through the Milos Stehlik Scholar Award.

Milos Stehlik, more:

Milos co-founded Facets Multimedia in 1975 as a hub for cinephiles to access hard-to-find independent and international films from around the globe. Milos was also a pioneer of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the oldest, biggest kid’s film festival in North America. As an educator, a journalist on WBEZ, and a vocal champion of film, Milos has helped introduce generations to the awesome power of film.

Telluride Film Festival, more:

The prestigious Telluride Film Festival ranks among the world’s best film festivals and is an annual gathering for film industry insiders, cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers and critics. TFF is considered a major launching ground for the fall season’s most talked-about films.

Founded in 1974, Telluride Film Festival, presented in the beautiful mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, is a four-day international educational event celebrating the art of film. Telluride Film Festival’s long-standing commitment is to join filmmakers and film connoisseurs together to experience great cinema. The exciting schedule, kept secret until just before Opening Day, consists of over three dozen filmmakers presenting their newest works, special Guest Director programs, major Tributes to guest artists, special events, and remarkable treasures from the past.

The Telluride Film Festival is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit educational program. Festival headquarters are in Berkeley, CA.