Jon Favreau’s ‘Chef’ Wins Audience Award at Tribeca 2014
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival has drawn to a close, with director Jon Favreau walking away as the crowd favourite after winning the Heineken Audience Award for Best Narrative Film this weekend.
He may be best known to mainstream audiences as the man who brought Iron Man and the Marvel renaissance to the big screen, but Favreau started his career with some stellar credits in the indie film industry (including writing US showbiz comedy Swingers). His latest, Chef, sees him take the lead role as well as write and direct as the titular cook who starts up his own food truck after losing his restaurant.
An American comedy that returns Favreau to his roots, Chef emerged as the big winner at the New York festival, netting a cash reward of $25,000. Favreau has announced that he plans to donate the prize money to the City Harvest, a food charity based in New York City.
Chef reunites Favreau with his Iron Man compatriots Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson, along with John Leguizamo, Sofía Vergara and Dustin Hoffman.
Favreau wasn’t the only winner, though. Newcomer Alan Hicks picked up the Audience Award (and another $25,000) for Best Documentary with his debut Keep On Keepin’ On, which follows jazz legend Clark Terry. Hicks was also awarded the title of best new documentary filmmaker by the festival jury last week.
Keep On Keepin’ On has no planned release as of yet, while Chef is due out in UK cinemas on 18 June.
