sundance 2006 - Zoael

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CONTRIBUTORS
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Awards Ceremony Ends
In Surprised Parties
BY SANDY MANDELBERGER
SEVERAL SURPRISE WINNERS
dominated the Sundance Film
Festival Awards, which were presented
to a packed house of enthusiastic
filmmakers, professionals and audience
members at a gala ceremony held
on Saturday night at the Park City
Racquet Club. The concluding awards
ceremony and party bring to an end a
ten-day film bonanza that drew nearly
40,000 visitors to the Festival.
Two films, both surprise choices based
on early predictions, won the four top
prizes in the American
Independent Film competition.
Quinceanera, a heartfelt family
drama set in the Mexican community
of Los Angeles’ Echo Park, won both the
Grand Jury Prize as Best Dramatic Film
and the Audience Award, voted on by the
general public. The film, co-directed by
Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer,
focuses on a family preparing for a
Mexican version “La Quinceneara”, a rite
of passage that has since evolved into a
debutante’s “coming out party” for a
young Chicano girl. The film touched on
themes of tolerance, gentrifrication and
the eroding of traditional Latino culture.
The documentary film God Grew
Tired of Us won both the Grand Jury
Prize as Best Documentary and the
Audience Award. The film, directed by
Christopher Quinn, is an intimate look
at three Sudanese “lost boys” who leave
their war-torn country to start new lives
in the United States.
Neither film had been handicapped
in the press as potential winners, nor
have either secured distribution deals.
Of course, all this can change rapidly,
since the films obviously scored points
with both the discriminating professional
juries and the “grande publique.”
Expect to hear about pickups of both
titles in the coming days.
For the second year, films competed
in the World Cinema Competition in
both documentary and dramatic categories.
13 Tzameti, a black-and-white
thriller directed by Georgian-born
French director Gela Babluani won the
Grand Jury Prize as Best Drama. The
film is a gritty tale of making moral
choices, as a taxi driver decides to follow
instructions intended for someone
else that lead him to confront the
underbelly of society.
The World Cinema Audience Award
went to the New Zealand sleeper No. 2,
a feel-good family comedy starring
4
SUNDANCE 2006
American actress Ruby Dee. The film,
which comes alive with the heat and
passion of the South Pacific, was written
and directed by Toa Fraser.
Two Mexican documentaries dominated
the Best World Documentary categories.
In the Pit, written and directed
by Juan Carlos Rulfo, chronicles the
daily lives of workers building a new
freeway in Mexico City. De Nadie,
directed by Tin Dirdamal, won the
Audience Prize for his telling of a
woman’s terrifying journey through
Mexico to enter the United States illegally.
The documentary film Irag in Fragments
walked away with the most prizes, winning
awards for best direction and cinematography
(James Longley) and editing
(Billy McMillin, Fiona Otway and
Longley). The film offers a harrowing
look at the violent atmosphere of the
war-torn country seen through the eyes
of a young boy. The film has not yet been
picked up for distribution, but seems a
likely bet for a courageous distributor.
If Sundance has launched any career
this year, it would be that of Dito
Montiel. The debut director won the
Best Director prize for his autobiographical
A Guide to Recognizing
Your Saints, a memoir of growing up
on the drug-infested streets of Astoria,
Queens in the 1980s. The film, which
featured good performances by such
veterans as Robert Downey Jr, Chazz
Palminterri, Diane Weist and a host of
dynamic young actors, also earned an
award for Best Ensemble Cast. The
film, which has not yet found a distributor,
may yet have the good luck of benefiting
from a bidding war. The film certainly
seems destined to have a future
on the big screen, and Dito Montiel is a
new indie name to be reckoned with.
The prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting
Award went to Hilary Brougher,
for her sensitive portrayal of a young
girl’s unexpected pregnancy in the film
Stephanie Daley. The Best Cinematography
prize was awarded to Tom Richmond
for his work on the terrorist bombing
thriller Right at Your Door, the only
film to win an award that secured a distributor
during the Festival (Lions Gate).
Several films that early opinion polls
predicted as frontrunners, including
such dramatic films as Come Early
Morning, Sherrybaby and Steel City,
and documentary titles A Lion in the
House, Thin and The Trials of Darryl
Hunt came away empty handed.
However, as has been endless repeated
in the trade press, the Sundance
awards are not always terrific predictions
for box office success. There
is talk of a “Sundance curse” which has
bedeviled the Festival from the beginning.
However, as Festival Director
Geoff Gilmore eloquently put it at the
awards ceremony, “All the films shown
at the Festival are to be lauded as a
tremendous achievement for simply
being made against great odds.”
Now that Sundance 2006 is history,
the films, award winners and official
selections that moved audiences during
an extraordinary ten days of cinema
excellence will have lives of their own.
Some will make it to the big screen,
some will only make it to the small
screenand others will only get seen at
other film festivals. Whatever their fate,
their Sundance pedigree will distinguish
them as filmgoing events.
AQUISITIONS
COMPILED BY EDDY GILBERT HERCH
By alphabetical order, director, distributor,
rights purchased and amount (if
announced):
The Darwin Awards
Finn Taylor
Bauer Martinez (domestic)
Factotum
Bent Hamer
IFC Films
The Film is Not Yet Rated
Kirby Dick
BBW (UK broadcast)
The Foot Fist Way
Jody Hill
Momentum (UK rights)
God Grew Tired of Us:
The Lost Boys of Sudan
Christopher Dillon Quinn, Tom Walker
TF1 International
(all non-English language territories)
The Ground Truth:
After the Killing Ends
Patricia Foulkrod
Distributor information not available at
press-time
Half Nelson
Ryan Fleck
ThinkFilm
CONTINUED ON PAGE 14