“A Thousand and One,” A.V. Rockwell’s drama about a mother who kidnaps her son from the foster care system, has won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “Radical” has taken the top Audience Award.
In the U.S. Dramatic Competition section, Sing J. Lee won the directing award for “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” “Theater Camp” won the award for ensemble cast, while Lío Mehiel won the individual acting award for “Mutt.” “Magazine Dreams” won for creative vision and “The Persian Version” for screenplay.
In the U.S. Documentary section, the Grand Jury award was given to “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” The prize for directing went to Luke Lorentzen for “A Still Small Voice” and for editing to “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” with additional awards to “Bad Press” and “The Stroll.”
The Festival Favorite Award, the top audience prize, 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 features “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” as the best film, Marija Kavtaradze as best director for “Slow” and Rosa Marchant as best actor for “When It Melts.” In World Cinema Documentary, “The Eternal Memory” took the 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 prize for the shorts section.
Drawing from 4,061 feature-film submissions (and 15,855 submissions overall), this year’s slate featured 101 feature films. The jury consisted of Marlee Matlin, Jeremy O. Harris and Eliza Hittman for the U.S. Dramatic Competition; W. Kamau Bell, Ramona Diaz and Carla Gutierrez for U.S. Documentary Competition; Shozo Ichiyama, Annemarie Jacir and Funa Maduka for World Cinema Dramatic Competition; and Karim Amer, Petra Costa and Alexander Nanau for World Cinema Documentary Competition. Madeleine Olnek served as juror for the NEXT competition section, while Destin Daniel Cretton, Marie-Louise Khondji and Deborah Stratman comprised 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 last two Sundances taking place virtually because of the pandemic. The festival ran from Jan. 19 to Jan. 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort as well as online.
Past winners of the Sundance jury prizes 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: “A Thousand and One”
Directing Award: US Dramatic: Sing J. Lee, “The Accidental Getaway Driver”
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: US Dramatic: “The Persian Version,” Maryam Keshavarz
US Dramatic Special Jury Award: Acting: Lío Mehiel, “Mutt”
US Dramatic Special Jury Award: Creative Vision: “Magazine Dreams”
US Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble: “Theater Camp”
US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”
Directing Award: US Documentary: Luke Lorentzen, “A Still Small Voice”
Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: US Documentary: Daniela Quiroz, “Going Varsity in Mariachi”
US Documentary Special Jury Award: Clarity of Vision: “The Stroll”
US Documentary Special Jury Award: Freedom of Expression: “Bad Press”
Festival Favorite Award: “Radical”
Audience Award: US Dramatic: “The Persian Version”
Audience Award: US Documentary: “Beyond Utopia”
Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic: “Shayda”
Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary: “20 Days in Mariupol”
Audience Award: NEXT: “Kokomo City”
NEXT Innovator Award: “Kokomo City”
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: “Scrapper”
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 Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: “The Eternal Memory”
Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary: Anna Hints, “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Verite Filmmaking: “Against the Tide”
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision: “Fantastic Machine”
Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction: Jess Devaney, “It’s Only Life After All” and “Milisuthando”
Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producers Award for Fiction: Kara Durrett, “The Starling Girl”
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Nonfiction: Mary Manhardt
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Fiction: Troy Takaki
Sundance Institute/NHK Award: Olive Nwosu, “Lady”
Sundance Institute/Stars Collective Imagination Awards: Tamara Shogaolu for “40 Acres”; Navid Khonsari, Vassiliki Khonsari, and Andres Perez-Duarte for “Block Party Bodega”; Vanessa Keith for “Year 2180”
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: “The Pod Generation,” Sophie Barthes
Short Film Special Jury Award: Directing, International: Valeria Hoffman, “AliEN0089”
Short Film Special Jury Award: Directing, US: Jarreau Carrillo, “The Vacation”
Short Film Jury Award: Animation: “The Flying Sailor”
Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction: “Will You Look at Me?”
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction: “The Kidnapping of the Bride”
Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction: “Rest Stop”
Short Film Grand Jury Prize: “When You Left Me on That Boulevard”
