“A Thousand and One,” the AV Rockwell drama about a mother who kidnaps her son from foster care, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “Radical” has taken the top prize of the public.
In the US Dramatic Competition, Sing J. Lee won the directing award for “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” “Theatre Camp” won the choral cast award, while Lío Mehiel won the individual performance award for “Mutt”. “Magazine Dreams” won for creative vision and “The Persian Version” for script.
In the US Documentary section, the Grand Jury prize went to “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” The directing award went to Luke Lorentzen for “A Still Small Voice” and for editing “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” with additional awards for “Bad Press” and “The Stroll.”
The Festival’s Favorite Award, the audience’s top award, was won by the opening night film “Radical,” based on the true story of an innovative teacher in an impoverished Mexican school. Other Audience Awards went to the narrative feature films “The Persian Version” and “Shayda” and the documentaries “Beyond Utopia” and “20 Days in Mariupol”.
In the World Cinema Dramatic category, the jury chose “Scrapper” for best film, Marija Kavtaradze for best director for “Slow” and Rosa Marchant for best actress for “When It Melts”. At World Cinema Documentary, “The Eternal Memory” took top prize and Anna Hints was named best director for “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.”
“Kokomo City” won the award in the NEXT section, while “When You Left Me on That Boulevard” won the grand jury award in the short film section.
Drawing from 4,061 feature film submissions (and 15,855 submissions overall), this year’s list featured 101 feature films. Judging included Marlee Matlin, Jeremy O. Harris, and Eliza Hittman for the US Drama Competition; W. Kamau Bell, Ramona Diaz and Carla Gutierrez for the United States Documentary Competition; Shozo Ichiyama, Annemarie Jacir and Funa Maduka for World Cinema Dramatic Competition; and Karim Amer, Petra Costa and Alexander Nanau for the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Madeleine Olnek served as the jury for the NEXT competition section, while Destin Daniel Cretton, Marie-Louise Khondji and Deborah Stratman formed the jury for the Short Film Program Competition.
This year’s Sundance was the first in-person festival and awards ceremony in three years, with the past two Sundances held virtually due to the pandemic. The festival took place from January 19 to 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City and the Sundance Resort, as well as online.
Past Sundance Jury Award winners include “Nanny,” “Fruitvale Station,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore,” “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ” and Oscar winners “Whiplash”, “Minari”, “Summer of Soul” and “CODA”.
The winners:
US Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: “The thousand and one”
Directing Award: American Drama: Sing J. Lee, “The Hit-Away Driver”
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: US Drama: “The Persian version”, Maryam Keshavarz
US Dramatic Special Jury Award: Performance: Lío Mehiel, “Mut”
US Drama Special Jury Award: Creative Vision: “Dreams Magazine”
US Drama Special Jury Award: Ensemble: “Theatre Camp”
US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”
Directing Award: American Documentary: Luke Lorentzen, “A calm and delicate voice”
Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: American Documentary: Daniela Quiroz, “Going Varsity in Mariachi”
Special Jury Award for American Documentary: Clarity of Vision: “The walk”
Special Jury Award for American Documentary: Freedom of Expression: “Bad press”
Festival Favorite Award: “Radicals”
Audience Award: American Drama: “The Persian version”
Audience Award: American Documentary: “Beyond utopia”
Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic: “Shaida”
Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary: “20 Days in Mariupol”
Audience Award: NEXT: “Kokomo City”
NEXT Innovator Award: “Kokomo City”
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Drama: “Scraper”
Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic: Marija Kavtaradze, “Slow”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Performance: Rosa Marchant, “When it melts”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Lilis Soares, “Mami Wata”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision: “Animalia”, Sofia Alaoui
World Cinema Jury Grand Prize: Documentary: “Eternal memory”
Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary: Anna Hints, “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”
Special Jury Award for World Cinema Documentary for Verite Filmmaking: “Against the tide”
Special Jury Award for World Cinema Documentary for Creative Vision: “Fantastic Machine”
Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producers Award for nonfiction: Jess Devaney, “After All, It’s Only Life” and “Milisuthando”
Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Fiction Producers Award: Kara Durrett, “The Starling Girl”
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Nonfiction: Maria Manhardt
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Fiction: Troy Takaki
Sundance Institute/NHK Award: Olive Nwosu, “Ma’am”
Sundance/Stars Institute Collective Imagination Awards: Tamara Shogaolu for “40 Acres”; Navid Khonsari, Vassiliki Khonsari and Andrés Pérez-Duarte for “Block Party Bodega”; Vanessa Keith for “Year 2180”
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Award: “The Pod Generation”, Sophie Barthes
Special Short Film Jury Award: Direction, International: Valeria Hoffman, “AliEN0089”
Special Jury Award for Short Film: Direction, USA.: Jarreau Carrillo, “The Holidays”
Short Film Jury Award: Animation: “The Flying Sailor”
Jury Award for Short Film: Non Fiction: “Will you look at me?”
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction: “The kidnapping of the bride”
Jury Award for Short Film: American Fiction: “Rest stop”
Grand Prize of the Short Film Jury: “When you left me on that boulevard”
