VBWFF Fete Finale [Photo: Denise Ritchie]

Mother Nature played havoc with the final day of the Vero Beach Wine + Film Festival, especially the Sunday afternoon Fete Finale Wrap Party, but in true show-must-go-on fashion, the Majestic 11 Theatre opened its doors to allow the Audience Choice and Life Worth Living Awards Ceremony to take place there.

By the end of the weekend, festival-goers had viewed more than 100 films at venues all around town, had attended numerous special events plus wine and beer seminars and, most importantly of all, enjoyed every minute of it.

“It is so important to us to have this weekend where we can support Suncoast Mental Health. Where we can bring amazing independent films and celebrate incredible wines here in Vero Beach,” said VBWFF founder Jerusha Stewart at that event, crediting all the audiences and event attendees for its success. “Because you have cared for and nurtured and loved this baby, we are growing.”

The second two days of the festival kicked off Saturday morning with screenings all around town and, at the Vero Beach Theatre Guild, the Next Up Young Filmmakers Awards Ceremony. And if the student films showcased there are any indication of the future of cinema, we’re in good hands. Thirteen juried films were screened to an appreciative crowd of family, friends and community members who came to view them and learn who would take home the awards.

Topics were inspired and relevant, and included musicals, suspense, comedy and science fiction, as well as such serious social topics as bipolar disorder, HIV and student fears in the wake of school violence occurrences.

After the screenings, filmmakers were joined by award-winning director Jeff Woolnough for a Q&A with the audience and shared their favorite facets of the process.

“There’s some ‘reel’ talent in the state of Florida, with very bright futures,” said Woolnough. “It’s really encouraging.”

Evan Barber was the Documentary winner for “My Landline,” and will receive $500 and the chance to shadow a yet-to-be-named documentary filmmaker. Vero residents could relate to the film, which highlighted the impact of having a landline during hurricanes.

Jake Hutchison won the Fiction category for “Standardized Heisting,” a comedic Ferris Buelleresque film about stealing a test, and will receive $500 and the chance to shadow Woolnough on the set of “The Expanse,” being filmed in Toronto later this year.

Molly Smith and Sage Croft received an honorable mention in the Documentary category for “Dear America,” and Josh Bowen was runner-up in the Fiction category for “More to Life.”

Saturday afternoon, Vero Beach resident Jill Landes, associate director of “The Lavender Scare,” shared insight into a subject that most people have never heard of – the systematic purging of thousands of homosexuals from government jobs in the 1950s, at its screening at the Vero Beach Museum of Art.

“It took us more than five years to make this film,” said Landes, noting that the director, Josh Howard, was her boss when she worked at “60 Minutes” in New York. “Most of the subjects in our film have since died, so this was the last opportunity to have people who lived through it tell this story.”

On Saturday evening, producers, writers, directors and actors bellied up to the bar at American Icon Brewery for Dining with Directors, enjoying brewery favorites and Allan Scott Wines, while talking shop with colleagues, dishing on the films they’d seen and reveling in the feedback from festivalgoers.

Afterward, the party traveled to Vero Strength & Conditioning, where the only heavy lifting was on the dance floor during the Studio 54 Disco After Party. The stage was set for a groovy 1970s-era affair, with smoke machines, flashing disco balls and Soul Train playing on a giant screen.

Guests turned up in droves, dressed to impress in such discotheque attire as bell-bottoms and halter tops, spandex bodysuits and platform shoes. Off the dance floor, attendees cooled off with electric blue, tie-dyed signature cocktails, or visited one of the themed bars – cigars, cotton candy, jelly bean and tequila, as well as a chocolate bar, where they had to hammer away with a wooden mallet to retrieve their chunk of chocolate.

On Sunday, attendees scurried through the raindrops in an attempt to fit in a few last films and events.

One of those enjoying a breakfast buffet and the fabulous music of Tunisha Hill and the Sound Band at the Sunday Gospel Brunch at American Icon Brewery was Belgian-born filmmaker Veronique Vanblaere, who goes by the name Véro.

“When I saw that there was a film festival with my name on it, and it was wine and I love wine, this was meant to be!” Vanblaere said with a laugh. That was in 2016, but she was unable to come here as her film had also been accepted at the Cannes Film Festival. Commenting that there are often lots of serious films at festivals, her submission this year was the comical animated short “Space Wind,” about “farts in space.”

The film “Long Time Coming: A 1955 Baseball Story” was an especially noteworthy one for Vero Beach, where in 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, breaking the baseball color line at Dodgertown, renamed the Jackie Robinson Training Complex this year in his honor.

“We are the only sports facility on the Civil Rights Trail in the United States. So we are honoring those accomplishments with a Courageous Conversation here in this community,” said Stewart, encouraging participation in a “Coming to the Table” event that was held Sunday at the WOW tent, hosted by Dr. Stacie Walton and Chuck Cogliandro.

Later, when lightning put the kibosh on any other WOW tent activities, folks headed to the Majestic 11 for the Audience Choice and Life Worth Living Awards Ceremony.

“The Lavender Scare” received the Audience Award for Documentary Feature, accepted by Landes. Stewart noted that the film, which opened nationwide this weekend to top reviews, will be featured June 18 on PBS.

Happily accepting the Audience Award for Narrative Feature was Hermann Weiskopf for his film “Otto Neururer – Hope through Darkness,” which had also won the Filmmaker Festival Award in the same category.

“Our film has just come out,” said Weiskopf. Likening the film to a baby, he said, “Babies need people who take care of them. If you take good care of it, it might grow. From this festival, it is not a baby anymore.”

Stewart said the special Life Worth Living Award, which encompasses the festival’s heart and soul, is given to a filmmaker “who we feel really epitomizes what we are about as a festival and where we’d like to be in the future; someone who will carry the torch for the values of the film festival, for the audience, for the message of Suncoast and positive mental health.”

Stewart presented the award to “Hang Time” director Casey Zilbert, who called it an “awesome award.” She said that as someone with “a lot of medical conditions,” just staying alive and functioning in normal society is difficult, making the award’s recognition of that survival effort that much more significant.

As a 10-year veteran of the film industry, Zilbert said, “This is the first festival that I’ve come to that has a soul and a passion and a cause. It’s very naive to say that you want to make films because you want to change the world, especially as a young woman. That would not be possible without places like Vero Beach.” Pointing to Stewart, she added, “And it would not be possible without people like yourself, Jerusha.”

Before settling in for an encore screening of “Toxic Puzzle,” guests enjoyed a brief intermission to fill their plates with a lovely smorgasbord Chef Ashley Allison and her crew reinvented from the spread originally planned for the WOW tent, adding in her famed jambalaya to keep the rain-induced chill at bay.

Stay tuned for VBWFF West, a second festival taking place Feb. 1-2 in partnership with Design Within Reach and the Vero Beach Outlets. For more information, visit vbwff.com.