The 2022 Sundance Film Festival concludes this weekend, the festival’s second straight virtual offering in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. And, because a film festival wouldn’t be complete without all those juicy film festival awards to adorn posters and the opening text of movie trailers, the (technically, still) Park City-based event also hosted its annual prize ceremony today.
Sundance revealed its winners through Twitter today, as did the Golden Globes earlier this month. The roll-out began with the Festival’s short film prizes, with Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan’s The Headhunter’s Daughter winning the Short Film Grand Jury Prize. If I Go, Will They Miss Me (Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction) and WARSHAW were also winners in the category (Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction).
Following that are the World Cinema Documentary and Drama categories, with Grand Jury Prizes awarded to Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes (about two brothers fighting to rescue the Indian Black Kite from pollution and probable extinction) and Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Utama.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Cha Cha Real Smooth (which has already been picked up by Apple) won the Audience Category for Drama, while the Russia-focused Navalny won the Documentary award. Bradley Rust Gray’s blood (for “Uncompromising Artistic Vision”), the actors of 892, and the documentary Aftershock and Descendent also received Special Jury Awards.
Finally, Jamie Duck for Palm Trees And Power Lines and Reid Davenport for I Didn’t See You There won for Directing (for drama and documentary, respectively.) The Grand Jury Prize in documentary went to Christine Choy’s Tiananmen Square documentary The Exiles, while Nikyatu Jusu’s spooky thriller Nanny got the top prize in drama.
