'Sollers Point' wins top jury prize at Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris

Sollers Point, the fourth feature film directed by Johns Hopkins lecturer Matthew Porterfield, won the top jury prize for an American independent feature Wednesday at the 2018 Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris.

Porterfield, a Baltimore native, has taught film production and theory in JHU's Program in Film and Media Studies since 2007.

The feature jury at the seventh-annual festival, a showcase for independent American and French films, was chaired by French director Serge Bozon, whose recent Mrs. Hyde gender flips Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Isabelle Huppert in the starring role.

Sollers Point follows Keith (McCaul Lombardi), a working-class kid from Baltimore trying to re-enter society after a prison sentence and house arrest. It was released last month in 11 cities across the country and is still playing at Baltimore's Parkway Theatre.