The 40th edition of Sundance Film Festival took place in Utah, honouring the best of this year’s lineup. The U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize went to Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers, about two sisters who navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, NM. Lacorazza also won a special jury prize for directing.
Other Grand Jury winners unveiled in the ceremony included Porcelain War in the U.S. Documentary competition, A New Kind of Wilderness in the World Cinema Documentary competition, and Sujo in the World Cinema Dramatic competition. Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s documentary, Daughters, received the Festival Favorite Award as well as the Audience Award for the U.S. Documentary competition. It follows four young girls preparing for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique program in a Washington, D.C., jail.
Other Audience Awards, meanwhile, went to Dìdi in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Girls Will Be Girls in the World Cinema Dramatic competition and Ibelin in the World Cinema Documentary competition. Kneecap won the Audience Award for the Next Section. Dìdi, written and directed by Sean Wang, is set in 2008 during the last month of summer before high school begins, when an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom. It also won an ensemble prize for its cast that includes Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen and Chang Li Hua.
Actor Jesse Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for A Real Pain that he also directed and stars in with Kieran Culkin. This year’s juries were comprised of Debra Granik, Adrian Tomine, and Lena Waithe (U.S. Dramatic Competition); Shane Boris, Nicole Newnham and Rudy Valdez (U.S. Documentary Competition); Anita Gou, Mira Nair and Rui Poças (World Cinema Dramatic Competition); Mandy Chang, Monica Hellström and Shaunak Sen (World Cinema Documentary Competition) and Zal Batmanglij (Next).
Earlier in the week, the festival handed out its Alfred P, Sloan Science-In-Film Initiative’s feature film prize to Love Me. Set in a post-human world, it centres on a love story between two AI-driven objects – an ocean buoy and a space satellite – voiced by Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun.
The Grand Jury Prize went to Alex Lora Cercos’~The Masterpiece from Spain. The shorts lineup comprising 53 films was judged by a jury featuring Christina Oh, Danny Pudi and Charlotte Regan.