Last night, filmmakers and Festivalgoers crowded into the Park City Racquet Club to celebrate the close of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and to learn which films Festival juries and audiences had chosen for awards. Hosted by William H. Macy, the ceremony took its cue from the Festival’s Utah location and carried off a Western theme.
Awarded to one of the 16 U.S. films in the Dramatic Competition, the 2008 Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic went to Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River. The film tells the story of a desperate trailer mom and a Mohawk woman who team up to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada.
The Jury selected Tia Lesson and Carl Deal’s Trouble the Water for top honors from the 16 films in the Documentary Competition of U.S. films.
Tallied throughout the 10 days of the Festival, Audience Awards are given to a film in the Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and are presented by Volkswagen of America, Inc.
The Audience Award: Documentary was presented to Josh Tickell’s Fields of Fuel, a look at America's addiction to oil. Tickell is a man with a plan and a Veggie Van, who is taking on big oil, big government, and big soy to find solutions in places few people have looked.
The Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to The Wackness, directed by Jonathan Levine. During a sweltering New York summer, a troubled teenage drug dealer trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist, and in the process falls for the doctor's daughter.
This marks the fourth year of the Festival’s World Cinema Competition. The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic went to Jens Jonsson’s Swedish film King of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen). An ostracized and bullied teenager who excels only in ping pong descends into an acrimonious struggle with his younger, more popular brother when the truth about their family history and their father surfaces over the course of their spring break.
The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was given to Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh and from the U.K. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit's daring dance on a wire suspended between New York's Twin Towers and his subsequent arrest for what would become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”
The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was given to the Jordanian film Captain Abu Raed, directed by Amin Matalqa. The first feature film to come out of Jordan in 50 years, Captain Abu Raed tells the story of an aging airport janitor who is mistaken for an airline pilot by a group of poor neighborhood children and whose fantastical stories offer hope for a sad, sometimes unchangeable, reality.
James Marsh’s Man on Wire received the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary in addition to receiving the World Cinema Jury Prize.
This year, for the first time, films screening in the World Cinema Competition were eligible for the same awards presented to the U.S. films in Competition. Following is the list of other awards presented last night:
Directing Award: Documentary – Nanette Burstein, American Teen
Directing Award: Dramatic – Lance Hammer, Ballast
World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary – Nino Kirtadze, Durakovo: Village of Fools
World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic – Anna Melikyan, Mermaid
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award – Alex Rivera and David Riker, Sleep Dealer
World Cinema Screenwriting Award – Samuel Benchetrit, I Always Wanted To Be a Gangster
Documentary Editing Award – Joe Bini, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award – Irena Dol, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins
Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary – Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring, Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Excellence in Cinematography Award: Dramatic – Lol Crawley, Ballast
World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary – al Massad, Recycle
World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic – Askild Vik Edvardsen, King of Ping Pong
Jury members are given the option of awarding Special Jury Prizes to competition films they have designated as meriting special recognition. The Special Jury Prizes for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival are:
Special Jury Prize: Documentary – Lisa F. Jackson, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Special Jury Prize: Dramatic for The Spirit of Independence – Chusy Haney-Jardine, Anywhere, USA
Special Jury Prize: Dramatic for Work by an Ensemble Cast – Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brad Henke, Choke
World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Dramatic – Ernesto Contreras, Párpados Azules (Blue Eyelids)
