Outfest Best Actress winner Lauren Ambrose

Swimming, Robert Siegel's story of a young girl's struggle with her attraction to a manipulative new girl in town, and Big Eden, Tomas Bezucha's story of a sophisticated gay New Yorker who returns to his small Montana hometown and finds unexpected love, emerged as the two strongest candidates for distribution pick up at Outfest 2000.

Lauren Ambrose (Can't Hardly Wait) deservedly picked up the Outfest Jury's Best Actress nod for Swimming. Lending a possible marketing tie-in is last week's news that Ambrose has been cast in Six Feet Under, the upcoming HBO series from American Beauty scribe Alan Ball.

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