Patrik Eklund's FLICKER Tops Fantastic Fest Awards!

During a riotous night of high praise and beer swigging, the Fantastic Fest Awards were dished out to the cream of the festival, with more categories and winners than ever before. Patrik Eklund's wry Swedish ensemble comedy Flicker took the top honour of the night, the AMD Next Wave award for Best Film, Robert Wilson & Jason Lapeyre's I Declare War won the Audience Award, Kristina Buozyte's Vanishing Waves won the Fantastic Feature prize, Adrian Garcia Boliano's Here Comes The Devil swept the Horror Features category, Dutch comedy New Kids Nitro bagged the Gutbuster Comedy award and Michael Stephenson's The American Scream won the inaugural Best Documentary prize. 

As is customary, winners were invited to the stage to chug down a celebratory beer in their trophy mugs, and all of these films should now rocket to the top of your must-see lists! Check out the full list of winners below:

Austin, TX-Monday, September 24, 2012 - Fantastic Fest is thrilled to announce this year's Fantastic Fest Award winners. It's a terrible task to pick favorites and single out any of the magnificent films that played at this year's festival, but our esteemed team of jurors have done the nearly impossible and chosen the best and most striking films of the festival.

The audience awards are presented by accounting firm Maxwell Locke & Ritter (www.mlrpc.com), who provided the certified tabulation of ballots this year and are the exclusive accounting sponsor of Fantastic Fest. AMD is the presenter of the prestigious "Next Wave" Awards, which honors emerging filmmakers. The winner of the "Next Wave" feature award is presented with an elegant AMD/Next Wave Trophy along with AMD-based computer hardware featuring the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU).

AUDIENCE AWARD (Presented by Maxwell Locke & Ritter)

I Declare War (dir. Robert Wilson & Jason Lapeyre)

AMD "NEXT WAVE" SPOTLIGHT COMPETITION

Best Picture: Flicker (dir. Patrik Eklund)

Best Director: Charles de Lauzirika (Crave)

Best Screenplay: Max Porcelijn (Plan C)

Best Actor: Michael Eklund (Errors of the Human Body)

Best Actress: Alina Levshin (Combat Girls)

FANTASTIC FEATURES

Best Picture: Vanishing Waves (dir. Kristina Buozyte)

Best Director: Kristina Buozyte (Vanishing Waves)

Best Screenplay: Bruno Samper, Kristina Buozyte (Vanishing Waves)

Best Actor: Rene Bitorajac (Vegetarian Cannibal)

Best Actress: Jurga Jutaite (Vanishing Waves)

HORROR FEATURES

Best Picture: Here Comes the Devil (dir. Adrián García Bogliano)

Best Screenplay: Adrián García Bogliano (Here Comes the Devil)

Best Director: Adrián García Bogliano (Here Comes the Devil)

Special mention: Hajime Ohata (Henge)

Best Actor: Francisco Barreiro (Here Comes the Devil)

Best Actress: Laura Caro (Here Comes the Devil)

Special Mention: Katherine Isabel (American Mary)

GUTBUSTER COMEDY FEATURES

Best Picture: New Kids Nitro (dir. Steffen Haars & Flip Van der Kuil)

Best Director: Dario Russo (Danger 5)

Best Screenplay: John Mitchell (The History of Future Folk)

Best Actor: Chapman To (Vulgaria)

Best Actress: Rina Takeda (Dead Sushi)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

Best Picture: The American Scream (dir. Michael Stephenson)

Best Director: Rodney Ascher (Room 237)

SHORT FUSE: HORROR SHORTS

Winner: At The Formal (Andrew Kavanagh, Australia)

Runner-up: The Sleepover (Chris Cullari, USA)

FANTASTIC SHORTS

Winner: Record/Play (Jesse Atlas, USA)

Runner-up: Love (Kaveh Nabatian, Canada)

DRAWN AND QUARTERED: ANIMATED SHORTS

Winner: Bendito Machine IV - (Jossie Malis, Spain)

Runner-up: Tram - (Michaela Pavlátová, Czech Republic)