Sundance is now over for another year, with a lot of deals done, many movies shown and, most importantly, an awful lot of parties held and swag given out. However to close the festival, the Sundance Film Festival awards were given out.
The top film was Winter’s Bone, which picked up the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic features and the Waldo Salt screenwriting award. Although not as heralded as some of the other Sundance selections, Winter’s Bone impressed the jury (and audiences) with its tale of a mountain girl who hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her missing father while trying to keep her family intact.
The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary went to Restrepo, which follows the Second Platoon in Afghanistan, who the documentary makers spent a year dug in with. The World Cinema Jury Prizes were handed to Denmark’s The Red Chapel in the documentary category and Australia’s Animal Kingdon in the dramatic skein.
Sundance is also well known for its audience awards, which are, as the name suggest, voted for by those attending the festival. In those categories, the Dramatic prize went you happythankyoumoreplease, about six New Yorkers juggling love, friendship, and the keenly challenging specter of adulthood, while the documentary prize was handed to Waiting For Superman, about the crisis in US public schools.
Sundance likes to give out a lot of awards (it almost feels they give out so many so that everyone can go away with something – this year 34 films won in 29 categories), so head over to the Film Festival’s official site for the full list.