This year’s winners were announced at an award ceremony Friday afternoon in Park City, Utah, according to the Associated Press.
The American drama competition was judged by writer Jeremy O. Harris, director Eliza Heitman, and actress Marlee Matlin.
Harris said, tearfully, that he asked for the grand jury prize to be awarded to “A Thousand and One” and writer-director A.V. Rockwell himself.
“I’ve never seen a life so similar to mine with such nuance and tenderness,” said Harris. “This movie reached into my intuition and pulled out of it every emotion I had learned to hide in these spaces.”
Rockwell, who made her film debut with the film, was similarly sentimental.
“This has been a long journey for me, but the institute has been such a beautiful support system,” Rockwell said.
The film “20 Days in Mariupol” won the Audience Award for the World Cinematic Documentary Feature.
A joint project between the Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” the film uses 30 hours of footage that shot AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov and his colleagues in the embattled Ukrainian city before they were snatched away.
Sing J. Lee won the award for Directing in a US Drama for “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” Theater Camp was honored with the Ensemble Special Jury Prize.
Lío Mehiel, who goes by their pronouns, took home a Special Jury Prize for his performance in “Mutt,” about a trans-masculine person one day in New York.
And the drama “Magazine Dreams”, in which Jonathan Majors plays an amateur bodybuilder, was given a creative vision.
“Everyone in this room, every person, every person, we offer you our deepest support and our deepest respect,” Matlin said through a translator. She also gave a shout out to the “CODA” team that won the festival two years ago. Troy Kotsur, her Oscar-winning co-star, was among the audience cheering for her.
Other major jury prize winners were: “Scrapper” in world cinema, about a 12-year-old girl who lives alone in suburban London after the death of her mother; and “Eternal Memory” in the world cinematic documentary about the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on a 25-year relationship.
Other Audience Award winners include “Persian Version” for an American drama film, “Beyond Utopia” for an American documentary film, and “Shida” for a world cinema drama film. Festival Favorite went to Radical, starring Eugenio Derbez as an inspiring teacher in a Mexican border town.
In total, 12 films premiered in the World Cinema Documentary section, including films about climate change, Syria, growing up during apartheid and the International Chopin Piano Competition. Eternal Memory, about a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s disease, won the Grand Jury Prize in this category.
Other award winners in this category include “Fantastic Machine” for creative vision, “Against the Tide” for real, and “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” for directing.
Several of last year’s Sundance winners were nominated for Academy Awards, including the documentaries “Navalny” and “All That Breathes.”
The festival was attended by many Sundance films with its distribution. Apple TV+ debuted in “Still: A Michael J. Fox Story” and “Stephen Curry: Underrated.” Neon had an “Infinity Ball”, A24 brought six including “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt”, “You Hurt My Feelings” and “Past Lives”. Searchlight rom-com had South London ‘Rye Lane’.
There have also been several large acquisitions made at the festival this year. Apple TV+, which took home its first Best Picture award when it paid $25 million for Sundance’s “CODA,” has the John Carney (“Once”) musical “Flora and Son” with Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Netflix has acquired the rights to the company’s thriller “Fair Play” with Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor, produced and sold by MRC. Both films went for $20 million. Searchlight has also purchased Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s “Theater Camp” for a theatrical release later this year.
This year’s festival, the first in-person gathering since 2020, debuted 111 feature films and 64 shorts. More than 75% of the films are available on Sundance’s online platform through Sunday, January 29th.
“We’re already thinking about what’s next,” Sundance CEO Joanna Vicente said.