Sundance Film Festival Winners

GRAND JURY PRIZE
Winter's Bone- stars Jennifer Lawrence (The Burning Plain) and centers around a girl trying to hunt down her drug dealing father-- sounds sort of familiar with 2008's Grand Jury Prize winner Frozen River, which was also written and directed by a woman, Winter's Bone was written and directed by Debra Granik. Currently no distributor has purchased the film, but I doubt that will be for long. Coincidentally, no film in it's history has one a best picture nomination that won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance-- this might change this year however with Precious.

DRAMATIC AUDIENCE AWARD
happythankyoumoreplease- directed by Josh Radnor (star of How I Met Your Mother) and star Malin Ackerman.

GRAND JURY PRIZE (Documentary)
Restrepo- directed by Sebastian Junger, writer of the The Perfect Storm, this film details the war in Afghanistan.

AUDIENCE AWARD (Documentary)
Waiting for Superman- from director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud), this documentary about education in the US will be released by Paramount Vantage.

WORLD CINEMA JURY PRIZE
Animal Kingdom- Aussie film starring Guy Pearce-- the musical Once won this prize at the 2007 film festival.

WORLD CINEMA AUDIENCE AWARD
Undertow- this one seems to be a supernatural story with gay undertones...

DIRECTING AWARD
3 Backyards- Eric Mendelsohn- Mendelsohn directed the cool 1999 film Judy Berlin, his latest stars Embath Davidtz (Junebug) and Edie Falco.

WALDO SALT SCREENWRITING AWARD
Winter's Bone- Debra Granik-- I gather they really liked this movie!

CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD
Obselidia- Zak Mulligan

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE- DRAMATIC
Sympathy for Delicious- the directing debut of Mark Ruffalo starring Orlando Bloom, Juliette Lewis and Laura Linney.

correction: Winter's Bone was acquired by Roadside Attraction Pictures, and Granik, the film's writer\director previously made the film Down to the Bone, a Sundance hit in 2004 which starred Vera Farmiga (or Alex in Up in the Air, or Madeline in The Departed) as a drug addict, her claim to fame, and an excellent movie for anyone looking for a great, tragically depressing film.