After the 2005 festival, Jeff V. came up with the idea that we should extend "Honorary SouthSide Citizenship Awards" to folks (filmmakers) who have become very important to our success. In 2006, we named Cory McAbee, whose "American Astronaut" was the featured invited film to our Prequel festival.  In addition, we named Mel Halbach and Clayton Farr, of FilmTreks, who conducted our first workshop - the Documentary Filmmaking Workshop, now in its fourth year. Mel had also provided us with the excellent documentary, "Long Haired Warriors", in 2004.

In 2007, we added two more "honorary citizens": Shanti Thakur and Pawel Partyka. Shanti brought "Kairos", "Circles" and "Seven Hours to Burn" to our 2006 festival; and conducted a very successful workshop, "Experiments With Reality", that year.  Pawel's "The Fantastic Flowershop" was an animation treat in 2006. He returned in 2007 to conduct our inaugural Animation Workshop for Kids (ages 8-12).

2008 recipient is Animator, Maciek Albrecht, below with Pawel Partyka.