'Well,' 'Drought' honored at LA film fest

LOS ANGELES, June 24 (UPI) -- Pocas Pascoal's "All is Well" and Everardo Gonzalez's "Drought" won the jury prizes for Best Narrative and Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

The award for Best Performance in the narrative competition went to Wendell Pierce, Emory Cohen, E.J. Bonilla and Aja Naomi King for their work in Joshua Sanchez's "Four."

Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore's "Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives" and Malik Bendjelloul's "Searching for Sugar Man" earned audience awards for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature respectively.

The winners were announced at a brunch where Jon Heder and Ari Graynor handed out the awards.

"Every single filmmaker in this year's festival deserves kudos for their artistry and compelling stories. Our juries had such gems to choose from in each competition and the winners truly represent what we hold dear -- diversity and uniqueness of vision," Festival Director Stephanie Allain said in a statement.

"In an extremely competitive year, our juries had hard choices to make. The winning films are wonderful examples of what the festival celebrates: bold, fresh, personal visions that expand the horizons of independent cinema," said Festival Artistic Director David Ansen.