It’s a wrap on the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, which means now its time to hand out the awards. Now, one shouldn’t judge Sundance by its buzz or the Oscar potential its films have generated, but man, in the 10+ years that I’ve been following Sundance really closely, it feels like the weakest year in ages; from an outside perspective anyhow. I wasn’t there. But as our awards guru already suggested, it was a middling year, and the awards season might have passed Sundance by this year. Regardless, there were critically-acclaimed films, but the sales have been slow and the deals relatively quiet so it’ll be interesting to watch and see how these Sundance award winners shake out later in the year.
Hosting the Awards ceremony: Jason Mantzoukas, actor, comedian and star of Hannah Fidell‘s “The Long Dumb Road” (Premieres section). Also onstage at the Awards were the “Hearts Beat Loud” musicians Keegan DeWitt and Jeremy Bullock with actors Nick Offerman on bass and Kiersey Clemons on vocals. They opened the show with their film’s title track.
Welp, that’s it. Color me surprised that the critically-acclaimed “The Tale,” from director Jennifer Fox came up empty handed. Maybe had pegged the film for the top prize and they didn’t even make a special jury prize for it. Oh, well, it just acquired by HBO Films, so there’s that. Full winner list below.
U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: Desireee Akhavan, “The Miseducation Of Cameron Post” (our review)
Audience Award: “Burden” (our review)
Directing: Sara Colangelo, “The Kindergarten Teacher” (our review)
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: Christina Choe, “Nancy”
Special Jury Award for Outstanding First Feature: Reid Marcus Green, “Monsters And Men”
Special Jury Award Special Achievement in Filmmaking: Reed Morano, “I Think We’re Alone Now” (our review)
Special Jury Award Achievement in Acting: Benjamin Dickey, “Blaze”
U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: Derek Doneen, “Kailash”
Directing: Alexandria Bomback, “Oh Her Shoulders”
Audience Award: “The Sentence”
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking: Stephen Maing, “Crime And Punishment” (our review)
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision: RaMell Ross, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” (our review)
Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking: Bing Liu, “Minding the Gap”
Special Jury Award for Storytelling: “Three Identical Strangers”
WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: “Butterflies”
Audience Award: “The Guilty” (our review)
Directing Award: Ísold Uggadóttir, “And Breathe Normally”
Special Jury Award for Acting: Valeria Bertucecelli, “The Queen of Fear,”
Special Jury Award for Screenwriting: Julio Chavezmontes & Sebastián Hofmann, “Time Share”
Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting: “Dead Pigs”
WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize: “Of Fathers and Sons”
Audience Award: “This Is Home” (our review)
Directing Award: Sandi Tan, “Shirkers”
Special Jury Award: Steven Loveridge, “Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.”
Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Maxim Arbugaev, Peter Indergand, “Genesis 2.0”
Special Jury Award for Editing: Maxim Pozdorovkin & Matvey Kulakov, “Our New President”
OTHER AWARDS
NEXT Audience Award: “Search” (our review)
NEXT Innovator Award: (tie) “Night Comes On” and “We the Animals” (our review)
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: “Search” (our review)
Sundance Institute NHK Award: Remi Weekes, “His House”
Sundance Institute/Amazon Studios Producers Awards: Katy Chevingy & Marilyn Ness (“Dark Money”) AND Sev Ohanian (“Search”)
Sundance Open Borders Fellowship Presented by Netflix: Talal Derki (“Of Fathers and Sons”) AND Chaitanya Tamhane AND Tatiana Huezo (“Night on Fire”)
Here’s the live stream in progress.
Click here for our complete coverage from the 2018 Sundance Film Festival