To bring closure to the inaugural ITVS Indies Showcase festival which just wrapped up, viewers were asked to select a favorite film for the always-coveted Audience Award. Well, the votes have been tallied and the Indies Showcase Audience Award winner is A Panther in Africa.

The documentary by filmmaker Aaron Matthews, which originally aired on POV, tells the story of  Pete O’Neal, a Black Panther living in exile in Tanzania who commits his life to activism and community service.

Congratulations to the filmmaker and thanks to everyone who voted!

Click her to watch a trailer >>

At film festivals, the accolade that often most excites filmmakers is the Audience Award. Take the opportunity to stand up and be counted by rating each film throughout the duration of the festival. The highest-rated film will receive a special Indies Showcase Award.

Rate the films as you see them on the Showcase site and help us identify the audience favorite!

Indiewire: Two Spirits Receives the Audience Award from PBS-Independent Lens
Lynda Nibley’s documentary Two Spirits has received the PBS-Independent Lens Audience Award, recognizing its status as the highest-rated film of the 2010-11 season by the measures of online voting and other forms of audience support.

Pop Matters: Cuba, An African Odyssey
El-Tahri’s fascinating documentary, produced in 2007 with the French-German television network Arte and premiering in two parts on ITVS’ Global Voices this month, traces the complicated history of Cuban efforts to help African independence movements during the Cold War.

Institute For the Future blog: Karim Ahmad introduces FUTURESTATES
Karim discussed his goal of tackling complex and often controversial topics often not seen on public TV, as well as the potential to engage new audiences across a wider range of platforms.

About.com: The Transmedia Approach to Documentary Development and Marketing
The Garbage Dreams multiplatform brand is the film’s issue. More specifically, the brand is the issue of waste disposal, recycling and how all that effects human life on Earth. That’s what the film’s about. That’s what the game’s about. That’s what the discussion is about. The issue is the brand. Branding by issue is a different way of conceiving and developing a movie’s marketing strategy, but it certainly seems appropriate for documentaries.

NCME Blog – News Hub: Building Inclusive Communities
One such project is the Independent Lens documentary Welcome to Shelbyville and the accompanying Shelbyville Multimedia engagement campaign, produced by Active Voice. Following the May 2011 PBS broadcast, Welcoming Gathering potlucks and Community Cinema screenings, held nationwide, ITVS partnered with the U.S. State Department to host a special screening of Welcome to Shelbyville for policy makers, advocates, service providers, and government officials working on refugee resettlement issues.

Visit our pressroom to find additional coverage of ITVS programs.

At film festivals, the award that often matters most to filmmakers and their subjects alike is the Audience Award. They know they’ve struck a chord when the audience applauds their efforts.

The race for the most coveted award of the year for Independent Lens came down to the last 30 minutes of voting. Our top three highest-rated films with the largest number of votes pulled in nearly 5,000 votes between them. It was like the documentary version of American Idol.

Find out the winner of the Independent Lens Audience Award after the jump >>

All three films averaged a full 5-star rating from voters, so it came down to numbers. In the end, our season finale, Two Spirits, edged out The Calling and The Longoria Affair to take the laurels.

We congratulate filmmaker Lydia Nibley and the entire Two Spirits team on inspiring an amazing number of our viewers and for mobilizing them on behalf of the film and its subject matter.

We offer Honorable Mentions to both The Longoria Affair and The Calling for a fine showing. Both films clearly inspired enthusiasm and devotion among their fans.

Watch the trailers from the winning films >>

Two Spirits

The Calling

The Longoria Affair

It’s a wrap!  The ninth season of Independent Lens is in the can, and what a fantastic season it was. We had nine months of eye-opening, jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching, and mind-blowing films. Now its the audience’s chance to vote for the films they liked the best.

Voting for the 2011 Audience Award is open for one more week, ending Tuesday, June 28 at 5pm PDT.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/award/

You can rate each film from one to five stars. You can rate any single film once every 24 hours, so vote early and often!

Best of luck to all of the filmmakers, and thank you for being a standout audience this season!

But first: we’re very happy to announce that ITVS has partnered with Telegraph 21 and The Big Screen Project to provide a very special Grand Prize to the winner.

In August, the winning film will be shown on the big screen, in the bustling heart of the Big Apple. Located four blocks from the Empire State Building, on the Chelsea/Midtown border, The Big Screen Project at the Eventi Hotel has become a magnet for New Yorkers seeking fine cuisine and food for thought. Learn more about the project here.

And so without further ado, we are pleased to announce the winner. Drum roll, please…

The winner of the 2011 FUTURESTATES Audience Award is That Which Once Was by Kimi Takesue. Set in 2032, the film follows an 8-year-old Caribbean boy who — after being displaced by global warming — fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile Northern metropolis and forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver.

Congratulations to all the films and filmmakers — it was a very close race — and thanks to everyone who watched and voted. Stay tuned to Futurestates.tv and the Futurestates Fan Page and Twitter feed for more updates on the original online series over the summer.

Watch this web-savvy interview with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, courtesy of Max Pearlstein’s A Well-Lighted Place.

You’ve watched the films. You’ve shared, commented, and liked. Maybe even loved. There have been ups and downs, laughter and tears. And this May, you get to decide who will take the laurels in our inaugural FUTURESTATES Audience Award.

From today until May 30 at midnight, the race is on to launch your favorite FUTURESTATES film into hyperspace. Head back to FUTURESTATES.TV, catch up on any films you missed, and check out the fan pages for each of the films.

You can vote once a day, and polling closes at midnight on May 30. We’ll announce the winner on June 1, 2011.

BEHOLDER
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

REMIGRATION
Watch on Futurestates.tv, or Like on Facebook

ASPARAGUS
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

SPRING OF SORROW
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

EXPOSURE
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

THE DIG
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

WHITE
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

WORKER DRONE
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

THAT WHICH ONCE WAS
Watch on Futurestates.tv or Like on Facebook

The film tells the heartbreaking story of the thousands of post-Katrina pets who were rescued and then adopted into new homes across the United States. When residents slowly returned to try and rebuild their lives, these animals became the center of full-blown custody battles, with people on both sides struggling to do what was right in the midst of an impossibly complex situation (check out the trailer below).

At film festivals, the award that indies covet the most is the Audience Award. After all, these non-conventional filmmakers are telling stories not for fame or fortune, but to enlighten and entertain you — the audience.

Congratulations to Mine and to all the nominees: Between the Folds, Dirt! The Movie, Unmistaken Child, and Young@Heart

All season long, our Web-savvy audience has logged on after each episode to cast their vote for their favorite. And without further adieu, the winner is…

ADJUST YOUR COLOR: The Truth of Petey Greene, by Loren Mendell!

ADJUST YOUR COLOR tells the unlikely story of America’s original shock-jock, Petey Greene, who battled the system and his own demons during a time of civil unrest in the nation’s capital.

A big congratulations to our other nominees: STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors; HELVETICA and TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

Check out more >>

Watch a 20 minute preview of ADJUST YOUR COLOR on SnagFilms >>

Choose from the four most popular films:

ADJUST YOUR COLOR: The Truth of Petey Greene
The unlikely story of America’s original shock-jock—Petey Greene—who battled the system and his own demons during a time of civil unrest in the nation’s capital.

HELVETICA
A film about typography, typeface, type, font, fonts, graphic design and global visual culture, HELVETICA looks at the proliferation of one typeface.

STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors
The survival tale of a group of young men who lived for 72 days in the Andes Mountains after their plane crashed in October 1972.

TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai
The dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a global movement.

Cast your vote today! >>

(Also be sure to post this link on your Facebook page and Tweet about it, too!)