Today the Sundance Film Festival ends not with a bang or a bash, but as it should: with movie screenings.
Saturday night, the nation’s premier gathering for independent film announced winners of its many juried prizes at a ceremony in Park City, Utah.
“God Grew Tired of Us,” Christopher Quinn’s documentary about three Sudanese refugees who came to America, won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. Narrated by Nicole Kidman, the documentary begins with the story of the 27,000 boys and young men who fled Sudan in the late 1980s, first for Ethiopia, then back through civil-war-riven Sudan to Kenya. It gains emotional traction as it follows John, Daniel and Panther when they leave the Kakuna refugee camp for the U.S.
At a Q&A session after one of the first public screenings, an attendee wrote a check for $25,000 to help one of the subjects with fledgling organization. It sounds made up, but a publicist confirmed the story. The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic went to “Quinceañera.” Directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, the ensemble-driven film uses the coming of age of a group of Latino teenagers in a Los Angeles neighborhood to delve into issues of family, hope and gentrification. For the first time in the festival’s history the two juried prize winners also won this year’s audience prizes.
One American documentary garnered a number of awards. James Longley’s lyrical and muscular “Iraq in Fragments” provides viewers three Iraqi perspectives: a boy working in Baghdad, a young leader in Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite movement and a family in the Kurd ish countryside. Longley won awards for directing, cinematography and, along with his co-editors, the first one given for documentary editing.
Dito Montiel won the directing prize for “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” starring Robert Downey Jr. Over the past 22 years, Sundance has become synonymous with American independent film. Yet in recent years, the festival and the Sundance Institute have aggressively expanded its horizons by adding competitions for international films.
Documentary prizewinner for World Cinema, Juan Carlos Rulfo’s “In the Pit” follows workers responsible for building the second tier of Mexico City’s Periférico freeway. First-time writer-director Géla Babluani’s “13 Tzameti,” a thriller, took the dramatic honors. An audience award in the World Cinema competitions went to another documentary from Mexico, “De Nadie,” about a woman’s 1,300-mile journey from Central America.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
