The fifth annual New Jersey Web Festival took place on Sunday night, September 25th. Taking place live from Montclair’s Brookside Banquets, Alonge Hawes was one of the biggest winners of the night. The multi-hyphenate took home the award for Best Director in A Thriller for the series ‘Silver & Gold’, a series he also created, wrote, and co-stars in. Hawes’s win comes off a festival awards hot streak, having picked up wins at the Cult Critic Movie Awards (Best Director), The Oniros Film Awards (Best Screenplay), and the Minnesota Webfest (Best Series Script).
This latest win marks Hawes’s first victory at the prestigious New Jersey Web Festival, where ‘Silver & Gold’ entered the evening as a five-category nominee. In addition to this, Hawes also beat out last year’s reigning directing champion Jayleen S. Perez, who returned to the category with the short film ‘Karmen’.
In addition to Perez, Hawes was also up against Jamaal R. Green (“Out All Night”), Ian David Diaz (“Rebecca Gold”), Kevin Hejna (“Absolved”), David Joseph Higgins (“Loved”), and Sally Lomidze (“White Willow Lake”).
Accepting his award, Hawes thanked his fellow nominees and creatives in attendance, calling them heroes for being the only ones who understood the often rigorous and thankless job of independent content creation. He also referenced his own struggles in getting his projects funded and distributed. “Since I started this journey six years ago, not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t ask me what happens if I don’t,” Hawes said. “What if I don’t get the budget I need? What if I don’t get the validation? What if I don’t get the awards?” Holding up his trophy triumphantly, Hawes declared, “I guess we’ll never know,” before walking off to enthusiastic applause from his peers.
Despite references to the struggles of being an independent filmmaker, Hawes has enjoyed quite a rise since creating, writing, and starring in his debut project, the web series ‘Blue Collar Hustle’ in 2017. The series ran for two seasons across multiple platforms including Seeka.tv, Goindietv, and KweliTV. His next project, another digital series titled ‘Black On Both Sides,’ ran for two seasons and 16 episodes on Seeka.TV.
‘Silver & Gold’ is presented in partnership with Jaro Media, a multimedia company created by Richard DeVaughn. In addition to creating, writing, directing, and co-starring, Hawes also serves as the series showrunner.
The series stars Quentin Williams and Brittaney Traylor as Charles Goldar and Bahiya Payne, two of the smoothest, sexiest, and slickest thieves in the Atlanta underground. When, in the quest for bigger scores and greater riches, they decide to team up with an eccentric computer genius and a stoic conman, it all seems like a match made in bandit’s heaven. But when the sins of the past begin to ransack the riches of the present, this ragtag team of criminals will have no choice but to rely on something money can’t buy: Trust.
‘Silver & Gold’ also stars Roberto Cruz as conman Sosa Gerena and Shani Hawes as computer hacker Cierra Valentine. Julian Robinson, Joshua Quinn, Pantheah Hawes, Claudette Thomason, Roxzanne T. Mims, Eduardo Bryant, and Angela Van Tassel also star.
The series is executive produced by Alonge Hawes through his A Million Stories One Pen Productions company. Richard DeVaughn, Shani Hawes, Jamal McClendon, Rodderick Fedd, Joshua Dennard, and Cordarol Sanders serve as producers. The series’ first six episodes are available for streaming on Jaro TV through both the Jaro Media website and it’s Jaro TV Roku app.
The New Jersey Web Festival, created and run by Neem Basha, launched in 2018 and has since become one of the biggest, most prestigious, and respected film festivals dedicated to supporting and honoring independent filmmakers in web and podcast mediums. In addition to digital series and podcasts, the New Jersey Web Festival also works to highlight pilots, scripts, trailers and music videos from independent creators nationwide and abroad. It is ranked as one of FilmFreeway’s best reviewed festivals and networking mixers.
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