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29 March 2024

Winter's Bone, Restrepo win top Sundance awards

Director Debra Granik accepts the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film for Winter's Bone. (AP)

Published
By Bob Tourtellotte

Winter's Bone, a stark tale of a young woman trying to keep her family together, and Afghanistan war documentary Restrepo have won top awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

Winter's Bone earned two prizes; best drama film and screenwriting for co-writer and director Debra Granik at the top US gathering for independent movies, judged by industry professionals.

Restrepo, which tells of a year in the life of a platoon of US soldiers in Afghanistan, earned the jury prize for best documentary for filmmakers Sebastian Junger (author of The Perfect Storm) and Tim Hetherington.

"This country's in a very painful moment, we're in the middle of two wars," Junger said on stage while accepting his award. "If our movie can help this country understand how to go forward, we would be incredibly honoured by that."

The festival, backed by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute for Film, kicks off the year for movies made outside Hollywood's major studios, and hits here are often among the most-watched in theatres that show low-budget, art and foreign movies.

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire was a big winner in 2009 and earned critical acclaim and box-office success in theatres, and Sundance has helped launch the careers of directors such as Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.

While Winter's Bone and Restrepo took home top honours from the jury, audiences also got to vote for their favourites at the festival, which ended last night.

Happythankyoumoreplease was among the winners claiming Best Drama Film. From first-time director and actor Josh Radnor, who stars in US television comedy How I Met Your Mother, it tells of six young New Yorkers dealing with life, love and friendship.

"I think my movie is rebellious," Radnor said on stage, echoing a theme of this year's festival about edgy filmmaking. "It's about people saying 'no' to cynicism and 'yes' to love."

Audiences voted Davis Guggenheim's (An Inconvenient Truth) documentary, Waiting for Superman, their favourite non-fiction film. It is a look at the crumbling US educational system and what can be done to fix it.

US dramatic film directing honours went to Eric Mendelsohn with 3 Backyards, a trio of tales about three people – a businessman, housewife and young girl – who find their lives change on a seemingly normal autumn day.

Among documentaries, Leon Gast was named best director for Smash His Camera, a look at the life and career of paparazzi Ron Galella, and the editing award went to Penelope Falk for Joan Rivers – A Piece Of Work, a look at the comedienne.

Australia's Animal Kingdom was named best dramatic film by the Sundance jury. It tells of an armed robber on the run from a gang of renegade detectives. The audience award for best drama went to Contracorriente, set in a Peruvian village and tells of a young married fisherman in love with a painter.

The jury prize winner for documentary was Denmark's The Red Chapel, about an unscrupulous journalist, and the audience trophy went to environmental film Wasteland, backed by filmmakers in the United Kingdom and Brazil, about a Brazilian artist who creates images of people using materials from where they live. (Reuters)

 

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