If you haven’t noticed already, the Sundance Film Festival is a wrap. “An Education” might have been the film attracting all the buzz and headlines at Sundance, but it’s the drama “Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire,” starring actress Mo’Nique (no seriously), that topped the Festival’s big prizes.
Not only did the film win the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Dramatic Audience Award, Mo’nique’s performance as a horrendously cruel mother to an obese, illiterate girl struggling in Harlem earned her a Special Jury Prize (our Sundance contributors called this one immediately too – they loved it).
Ondi Timoner, the filmmaker behind the rock documentary, “Dig!” and her latest film, “We Live in Public,” won the Documentary Grand Jury prize. “An Education” did score some prizes though, the heavily-buzzed indie Dramatic World Cinema Audience Award and the Excellence in Cinematography honor. Kim Longinotto’s “Rough Aunties,” Documentary, World Cinema Jury Prize. If you haven’t guessed already by all this, Sudance awards seem to mean little because there are far too many awards given which dilutes the overall event, still, the top awards do usually get noticed. Last years’s Dramatic Grand Jury prize went to “Frozen River,” and now Melissa Leo is an Oscar Best Actress nominee. We just wish they’d cool it with the surplus of winners. Cary Joji Fukunaga won the U.S. Best Directing prize for “Sin Nombre” and Nicholas Jasenovec and Charlene Yi won a screenwriting award for “Paper Heart,” but that’s all we’re listing out. Indiewire has the complete list of winners.
The festival was a bit of a muted affair this year and that’s why we got bored of writing about every little detail. Variety’s Anne Thompson called it, “quieter, warmer and, happily, shorter.” A few more films were bought though, including Ashton Kutcher’s “Spread” by Anchor Bay, “Moon,” starring Sam Rockwell by Sony Pictures Classics and and the British comedy, “In The Loop,” starring James Gandolfini by IFC. Presumably other films will get picked up afterwards, but if they’re bought after the festival, they’re probably not going for a huge sum.
PS, apparently ‘Push’ has been bought or is about to be bought by Lionsgate.