The 2006 Sundance Film Festival wrapped up this weekend, and in the process handed out its traditional set of end of festival awards. Culture clash and refugees were the order of the day, dominating nearly every Sundance award category.
The documentary God Grew Tired of Us dominated the festival’s documentary awards, coming away the festival Grand Prize while sweeping up a lot of other documentary related prizes as well. The Christopher Quinn directed doc explores strife in Sudan by following three Sudanese refugees from a camp in Kenya to a journey through Pittsburgh and Syracuse as they try to cope with culture shock and struggle to support the family they left behind.
Equally dominating was Quinceañera, as it ran away with the dramatic awards category. Quinceañera is the coming of age story of a 15-year-old Hispanic girl in Las Angeles, kicked out of her house only to discover she’s pregnant. To survive, she forms a makeshift family with her uncle and a gay cousin.
Though those two films seemed to gather up most of the attention, there was a little room for others. A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints won the dramatic directing award for helmer Dito Montiel. Iraq in Fragments won the Sundance documentary editing prize. Dramatic screenwriting was captured by Hilary Brougher, writer and director of the Tilda Swinton starring pregnant psychologist movie Stephanie Daley.
There’s more really, a lot of other awards were handed out; all of them to films that most of you, if you’re like me, would rather sit through Big Momma’s House 2 than watch. It’s all drug addicts and teenage mothers, and refugees. If you judged the world based on the movies shown at the Sundance Film Festival planet Earth would be a very doomed place indeed. Just reading the descriptions makes me want to give up on the human race. Because you might be interested, I’ll just throw a list of the rest of the winners below:
World Jury Prize: 13 Tzameti
World Cinema Audience Prize: No. 2
Documentary Jury Prize: TV Junkie
Documentary Jury Prize: American Blackout
Independent Vision: In Between Days
World Drama: Eve and the Fire Horse
Special Jury Prizes For World Documentary: Dear Pyongyang, Into the Great Silent
Alfred P. Sloane Prize (for the portrayal of scientists on film): The House of Sand (no fog)
