Here Are All The Winners From This Year’s Sundance Film Festival
Another year at Sundance is drawing to a close. After an exciting week of acquisitions and premieres, this weekend marks the festival’s annual award show, which is entirely virtual this year (like the rest of the fest). Sundance took an inconspicuous approach to its award announcements, sharing the names of the winners via Twitter rather than in a hosted ceremony. Still, there are plenty of highlights, including the coveted Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize winners.
Jury Prizes Rewarded First-Time Filmmakers
The top prize for the U.S. juried dramatic competition went to “Nanny,” a film about an undocumented Senegalese immigrant that marks the feature debut for writer-director Nikyatu Jusu. Anna Diop, who’s best known for her role as Kory Anders on DC’s “Titans,” plays the main role in the supernatural drama. Another feature debut, Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Bolivian film “Utama,” took home the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category.
This was an especially great year for first-time filmmakers at Sundance, as Violet Columbus and Ben Klein also garnered a juried award for their documentary, “The Exiles.” The film follows a documentarian — Christine Choy — as she embarks on a world-crossing project to share her footage from the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Shaunak Sen’s documentary “All That Breathes,” about two brothers in New Dehli, took home the final major juried prize, for the World Cinema Documentary category.
A Late Addition Nabbed A Major Audience Award
The Audience Award for the U.S. Dramatic competition went to"Cha Cha Real Smooth,“the title that also nabbed the biggest acquisition deal of the festival this year,selling to Apple for $15 million.“Cha Cha Real Smooth” is the second full-length feature by young filmmaker Cooper Raiff, whose film “Sh**house” won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at SXSW 2020. The film stars Raiff, who also wrote and produced, opposite Dakota Johnson.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Documentary Audience Award went to"Navalny,“a last-minute addition to the festival that was kept under wraps due to its sensitive political nature,per IndieWire. The covertly made film documents the poisoning of one of Vladimir Putin’s opponents, Alexei Navalny. The film apparently took festival-goers by storm, winning this coveted award despite only being added to the festival line-up this past week. CNN Films and HBO Max have acquired the rights to the film, according toThe Hollywood Reporter. “Navalny” also won the Festival Favorite Award.
Global Audience Award winners include the Finnish coming-of-age story"Girl Picture"and"The Territory,“which follows the Indigenous Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people as they defend the Brazilian Amazon from deforestation. The latter was sold to National Geographic, according to IndieWire. “Framing Agnes,” a meta documentary about the history of transgender healthcare as told through the eyes of one patient, won the NEXT Innovator Award.
Here’s The Full List
This year’s Sundance jury included a wide-ranging and compelling group of artists, including filmmakers like Marielle Heller, Joey Soloway, and Blackhorse Lowe. Per the official press release, additional jury awards are as follows:
Jury Awards for Directing, Screenwriting, and Editing:
