JEIFA Institute Mission

The JEIFA institute has as its sole mission the goal of facilitating appreciation of excellence in film by weaving together a diverse perspective of film appreciation, assessment and accolade from critics, guilds/professionals, major and historical awards programs and film enthusiasts.   The nominees and winners of JEIFA Awards represent achievement recognized by the broadest, most diverse and multifaceted collection of perspectives available in the film industry today.  

JEIFA Institute History

The JEIFA Association began in 1996 – born out of a simple question.  Is there a more objective and more accurate metric for determining excellence in film on an annual basis than the prevailing awards of the time?   The question came at a time when numerous film profession guilds, municipal and state-wide critics associations, populist awards programs, and online organizations were adding to an already crowded field of film awards granting organizations. With each one having their own foci and their own methodology for selecting winners, gone were days where the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes) had a monopoly on crowning champions of cinematic achievement.

With a mission statement in formation – to judge excellence in film across multiple expertises, interests, and perspectives – a group of students and some faculty/staff at Merrimack College established the JEIFA Association. The Acronym stood for “Judging Excellence in Film Awards” later changed to “Judging Excellence in Film Achievement.” The team of students partnered with the college’s student newspaper and established a rubric for determining nominations and then polling interested students, faculty, and staff.   Annual and Decennial Awards were announced in categorized that mirrored other well-known film awards programs. It was at this time the Association adopted the Eye of Providence as its symbol. The Association maintained a connection to Merrimack College until 2000, when the college, the student newspaper, and JEIFA parted ways due to the departure of all of the founding members of the Organization and later the departure of all faculty/staff that played a formative role.  JEIFA continued to maintain a relationship with the College unofficially, primarily through the participation of members of the college community in JEIFA Polls.

The JEIFA Association remained active throughout the 2000s and underwent its most significant change in 2007.  Ten years after its formation, the organization significantly modified its film assessment rubrics in light of changes in film awards programs over the past decade.  The change deepened the mathematical and statistical analysis of film performance across a field of film awards in comparison to public/populist metrics within the rubric.  The Association also adopted more detailed procedures for updating its assessment rubrics to allow for a more dynamic process that evolves with the industry over time.  With the organization’s mission and structure re-aligned to meet these changes in 2007, JEIFA amended its name and status from the JEIFA Association to the JEIFA Institute and formalized the acronym into its current meaning of “Judging Excellence in Film Achievement.”

In late 2018, in the lead up to the 24th Annual JEIFA Awards, the Association decided to broaden its outreach and share the outcomes of  its annual awards with a broader audience.  In preparation for the 25th Anniversary of the JEIFA Awards, the Institute established a website and social media accounts. It sought to broaden the scope of its participatory elements and actively promote the organization’s mission.   In keeping with the Institute’s guiding principles on assessing films and recognizing excellence, the association adopted policies restricting advertising on its online and social media environments and disallowing formal or informal relationships with studios, produces, filmmakers, and any entities or organizations that represent them to eliminate any influence in its decision making process.

Today, the JEIFA Institute applies a sophisticated rubric that assesses a film’s performance across a series of types of award-granting organizations including historically significant awards programs, critics associations, professional/guild organizations and populist and online driven awards programs to establish nominees and winners in 22 categories.  It disseminates the outcomes of this process and announces winners on its website and in various social media outlets.  The Institute welcomes the opportunity to join the broader conversation on film and film appreciation and welcomes all interested to partake in the Institute’s exploration of film.

History of JEIFA Categories

In 1996, the JEIFA Association presented its first awards in 16 Categories.  In 2005 the organization had its last expansion of categories to date bringing the total number of JEIFA Awards annually to 22.  In 2008, the JEIFA Institute modified the rules for Best Picture creating a potential second award in that category.

In 1996, the JEIFA Association presented awards for:

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Lead Actor and Actress

Best Supporting Actor and Actress

Best Screenplay: Original and Adapted

Best Original Score

Best Original Song

Best Cinematography

Best Art Direction / Production Design

Best Costume Design

Best Make-up & Hairstyling

Best Film Editing

Best Sound Mixing/Editing

Best Visual Effects.

In 2001, the JEIFA Association added two Categories to its program:

Best Animation/Animated Film

Best Foreign Language Film

In 2002, the JEIFA Association added:

Best Ensemble/Cast

In 2003, the JEIFA Association added:
Best Documentary (Feature Length)

In 2005, the JEIFA Association retired one category by splitting it into two:

Best Sound Mixing/Editing was retired as a category and replaced with two categories:

Best Sound/Sound Mixing

Best Sound Editing

In 2008, the JEIFA Association modified its rules for Best Picture, introducing the possibility for an Honorary Best Picture Award in the event the difference in score between the first and second placing films was smaller than 1.5% of all points scored. The first occurrence of an Honorary Best Picture did not occur until 2011.

In 2020, the JEIFA Association added:
Best Casting