Minneapolis, MN. At a ceremony today at the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Film Board and IFP/Minneapolis announced the winners of the 6th annual Minnesota Independent Film Fund. The Minnesota Independent Film Fund (MIFF) is the nation's first and only development program for independent feature filmmakers. It was created by the Minnesota Film Board and is operated in conjunction with the Independent Feature Project/North. Funders of the Minnesota Independent Film Fund are Northwest Airlines and the McKnight Foundation.

In this, the sixth year of MIFF, two indicators of the program's positive affect on the filmmaking community are worthy of note: 1) in the years 1996-2000 23 Minnesota-made independent films have been shot versus only five in the years 1991-1995 and 2) the writer, producer or director of each of this year's eight finalist projects has already completed a feature film, demonstrating the increased professionalism of our independent film community.

Winners are awarded development funds of $25,000 per project based on artistic vision and production feasibility. This year national panelists Angela Northington (Urban Entertainment, LA), Melissa Chesman (Redeemable Pictures, NY) and Gill Holland (cineBlast! Productions, NY) chose the three winners from a group of eight finalists. And the winners are:

• SHINING WHITE, Shawn Lawrence Otto
  
  
• MARCUS AND STRINGBEAN, Christine Walker
  
  
• FLASHPOINT: THE COPPAGE MURDERS, Wendell Jon Andersson & Fred Cheng

At the ceremony Northwest Airlines announced their decision to continue being a major partner in the Minnesota Independent Film Fund. The McKnight Foundation also continues its multi-year commitment to the program. These two community leaders, representing the worlds of corporate and foundation giving, have joined with the Minnesota Film Board in this unique partnership to support independent filmmaking in Minnesota.

Also today the Jerome Foundation announced the continued funding of a second and third year of the Screenwriters' Mentorship Program. Devised by the Minnesota Film Board as a complement to MIFF, this innovative program provides support and resources to ensure that the screenplay associated with the winning project is developed to its fullest potential. Over the course of one year, MIFF winners work with a screenwriter of national reputation in one-on-one consultations. Winners of MIFF '99 have worked with RAIN MAN screenwriter Barry Morrow and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON screenwriter James Schamus.

Sponsors for today's Awards Ceremony are: Abdo & Abdo Law Firm, Eide Bailly, Hi-Wire, Northwest Airlines, City Pages, Kodak, KPMG, Fredrikson & Byron, Jon Stein and Theresa Kintner-Stein, and the Walker Art Center. Host for the event is KMSP anchor Robyne Robinson.

Profiles of the winning filmmakers and descriptions of their projects follow:

• SHINING WHITE, Shawn Lawrence Otto
  Otto's screenplays have won local, regional and national awards. SHINING WHITE has won Best Screenplay at the 1999 Independent Feature Film Market, the 1999 Morrow Fellowship and the 1999 McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship. It is the story of Whitie, a destitute and bigoted gambler, who finds a chance for redemption where he least expects it on the reservation of the casino that destroyed him. Otto is currently working on an adaptation of John Fowles' novel "The Magus."
  
  
• MARCUS AND STRINGBEAN, Christine Walker
  Walker produced BACKROADS which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. She is an Independent Spirit Award Nominee and a 1999 recipient of the Sundance Institute's Mark Silverman Producer's Award. She has recently produced the independent feature EASTER with Ezra Swerdlow. Set in inner city Philadelphia, MARCUS AND STRINGBEAN is the story of Iris Wilson, a young black girl negotiating adolescent rites of passage. Her confusion is dramatized when ghosts from her family's unsettled past reappear. The screenplay's writer is Tanya Hamilton.
  
  
• FLASHPOINT: THE COPPAGE MURDERS, Wendell Jon Andersson/ Fred Cheng
  Wendell Jon Andersson won a 1995 Blockbuster/McKnight award and two fellowships to Sundance Institute for his film WITH OR WITHOUT YOU. He is currently developing several feature projects. Fred Cheng, who was a 1997 MIFF winner for MR. OCTOBER, is a freelance story analyst. FLASHPOINT: THE COPPAGE MURDERS is based upon the true events surrounding the 1994 firebombing deaths of five innocent children in St. Paul.