Festivals

Sundance Film Festival 2012

Juries and Audiences Share the Wealth as Prize Winners Announced

Park City, UT -– Four different films once again captured the top prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, with "Beasts of The Southern Wild" winning the Grand Jury Dramatic award and "The House I Live In" the documentary prize, while the Audience awards in each category went to "The Surrogate" and "The Invisible War", respectively.

Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts of The Southern Wild", the tale of a six year old named Hushpuppy, who lives with her daddy at the edge of the world, while Charles Ferguson's "The House I Live In" tries to pinpoint what has gone wrong in the failed War on Drugs, which has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad.

"The Surrogate", by Ben Lewin, centers on Mark O'Brien, a 36-year-old poet and journalist in an iron lung, decides he no longer wishes to be a virgin, and Kirby Dick's "The Invisible War" is an investigative and powerfully emotional examination of the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the U.S. military.

In the World Cinema category, the dramatic Jury prize went to Chile's "Violeta Went to Heaven", a portrait of famed Chilean singer and folklorist Violeta Parra, and the documentary award to Israel's "The Law in These Parts", probing Israel's 43-year military legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The World Cinema Audience awards were presented to the Indian drama "Valley of Saints", in which Gulzar plans to run away with his best friend from the war and poverty surrounding his village in Kashmir, and the Swedish documentary "Searching For Sugar Man", profiling Rodriguez, the greatest ‘70s U.S. rock icon who never was.

THE COMPLETE 2012 AWARD WINNERS

Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic)--"Beasts of The Southern Wild" (Benh Zeitlin)
Grand Jury Prize (Documentary)--"The House I Live In" (Charles Ferguson)
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic)--"Violeta Went to Heaven" (Andres Wood/Chile) br>World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (Documentary)--"The Law in These Parts" (Raanan Alexandrowicz/Israel)
Audience Award (U.S. Dramatic)--"The Surrogate" (Ben Lewin)
Audience Award (U.S. Documentary)--"The Invisible War" (Kirby Dick/)
Audience World Cinema (Dramatic)--"Valley of Saints" (Musa Syeed/India)
Audience World Cinema (Documentary)--"Searching For Sugar Man" (Malik Bendjelloul/Sweden)
Audience Best of NEXT!--"Sleepwalk With Me" (Mike Birbiglia)
U.S. Directing Award (Dramatic)--"Middle of Nowhere" (Ava DuVernay)
U.S. Directing Award (Documentary)--"The Queen of Versailles" (Lauren Greenfield)
World Cinema Directing Award (Dramatic)--"Teddy Bear" (Mads Matthiesen/Denmark)
World Cinema Directing Award (Documentary)--"5 Broken Cameras" (Emad Burnat and Guy David/Palestine, Israel)
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award--"Safety Not Guaranteed" (Anthony Mackie/USA)
World Cinema Screenwriting Award--"Young & Wild" (Marialy Rivas/Chile) U.S. Documentary Editing Award -- "Detropia" (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady)
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award -- "Indie Game: The Movie" (Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky)
Excellence in Cinematography Award (U.S. Dramatic)--"Beasts of The Southern Wild" (Benh Zeitlin)
Excellence in Cinematography Award (U.S. Documentary)--"Chasing Ice" (Jeff Orlowski)
World Cinema Cinematography Award (Dramatic)--"My Brother The Devil" (Sally El Hosaini/UK)
World Cinema Cinematography Award (Documentary)--"Putin's Kiss" (Lise Birk Pedersen/Denmark)
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize/Agent of Change--"Love Free or Die" (Macky Alston)
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize/Spirit of Defiance--"Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" (Alison Klayman)
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize/Excellence in Independent Film Producing--"Smashed" (Andrea Sperling and Jonathan Swartz) / "Nobody Walks" (Ry Russo-Young)
U.S. Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting--"The Surrogate"
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize/Artistic Vision--"Can" (Rasit Celikezer/Turkey)
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize/Celebration of the Artistic Spirit--"Searching for Sugar Man" (Malik Bendjelloul/Sweden))
Short Film Audience Award--"The Debutante Hunters" (Maria White)
Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking--"Fishing Without Nets" (Cutter Hodierne/USA)
Jury Prize in Short Film/U.S. Fiction--"The Black Balloon" (Benny and Josh Safdie)
Jury Prize in Short Film/International Fiction--"The Return" (Blerta Zeqiri/Kosovo)
Jury Prize in Short Film/Non-Fiction--"The Tsunami and The Cherry Blossom" (Lucy Walker/USA)
Jury Prize in Animated Short Film--"A Morning Stroll" (Grant Orchard/UK)
Special Jury Prize for Comedic Storytelling--"The Arm" (Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis)
Special Jury Prize for Animation Direction--"Robots of Brixton" (Kibwe Tavares/UK)
Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award--
"Vrystaat" (Etienne Kallos/South Africa)
"Partisan" (Ariel Kleiman/Australia)
"Late to Die Young" (Dominga Sotomayor/Chile)
"Margarita. With a Straw" (Shonali Bose/India)
Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker Award --Jens Assur ("Close Far Away")
Hilton Worldwide LightStay Sustainability Award--"The Island President" (Jon Shenk)
Sundance Institute Indian Paintbrush Producers Award--"Beasts of The Southern Wild" (Dan Janvey and Josh Penn)
Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize --"Robot & Frank" (Jake Schreier) / "Valley of Saints" (Musa Syeed)

For more on these films, and the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, go to the Sundance Film Festival Site.

THE COMPLETE 2011 AWARD WINNERS

Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic)--"Like Crazy" (Drake Doremus)
Grand Jury Prize (Documentary)--"How To Die In Oregon" (Peter D. Richardson)
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic)--"Happy, Happy" (Sykt Lykkelig/Norway)
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (Documentary)--"Buck" (Cindy Meehl)
Audience Award (Dramatic)--"Circumstance" (Maryam Keshavarz)
Audience Award (Documentary)--"Buck" (Cindy Meehl)
Audience World Cinema (Dramatic)--"Kinyarwanda" (Alrick Brown/Rwanda)
Audience World Cinema (Documentary)--"Senna" (Asif Kapadia/UK)
Audience Best of NEXT!--"to.get.her" (Erica Dunston)
U.S. Directing Award (Dramatic)--"MarthaMarcyMayMarlene" (Sean Durkin)
U.S. Directing Award (Documentary)--"Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of The Toynbee Tiles" (Jon Foy)
World Cinema Directing Award (Dramatic)--"Tyrannosaur" (Paddy Considine/UK)
World Cinema Directing Award (Documentary)--"Project Nim" (James Marsh/UK)
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award--"Another Happy Day" (Sam Levinson)
World Cinema Screenwriting Award--"Restoration" (Yossi Madmony)
U.S. Documentary Editing Award -- "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" (Matthew Hamachek and Marshall Curry)
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award -- "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975" (Goran Hugo Olsson and Hanna Lejonqvist)

Excellence in Cinematography Award (U.S. Dramatic)--"Pariah" (Dee Rees)
Excellence in Cinematography Award (U.S. Documentary)--"The Redemption of GEneral Butt Naked" (Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion)
World Cinema Cinematography Award (Dramatic)--"All Your Dead Ones" (Carlos Moreno/Colombia)
World Cinema Cinematography Award (Documentary)--"Hell and Back Again" (Danfung Dennis/UK)
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performance--Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan ("Tyrannosaur")
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize-- "Position Among Stars (Stand van de Sterren)" (Leonard Retel Helmrich/Netherlands)
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize--"Another Earth" (Mike Cahill)
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize--"BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer's Journey" (Constance Marks)
Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize --"Another Earth" (Mike Cahill)
Jury Prize in U.S. Short Filmmaking--"Brick Novax pt 1 and 2" (Matt Piedmont)
International Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking-- "Deeper Than Yesterday" (Ariel Kleiman/Australia
Short Filmmaking (Honorable Mention)--
"Choke" (Michelle Latimer/Canada)Br> "Diarchy" (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino/Italy)
"The External World" (David O'Reilly/Germany,Ireland)
"The Legend of Beaver Dam" (Jerome Sable/Canada)
"Out Of Reach" (Jakub Stozek/Poland)
"Protoparticles" (Chema Garcia Ibarra/Spain