Date: 29th January 2001

Sundance Concludes


The Sundance Film Festival concluded over the weekend without a single bidding war erupting over any entry -- but high praise being doled out generously to most of the winners (and, indeed, numerous contenders, as well) nevertheless. The big winner in the dramatic competition was Henry Bean's The Believer, about a neo-Nazi who is discovered to be a Jew. Hedwig and the Angry Inch took the top audience award as well as the best director's award. In the documentary competition, the top prize went to Southern Comfort about a transsexual suffering from ovarian cancer.

THE TOP SUNDANCE PRIZES: Grand Jury: Drama: The Believer, Documentary: Southern Comfort; Audience Awards: Drama: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Documentary: (tie) Scout's Honor, Dogtown and Z-Boys; Directing Awards Drama: John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Documentary: Stacy Peralta, Dogtown and Z-boys; Cinematography Award: Drama: Giles Nuttgens, The Deep End, Documentary: Albert Maysles, Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton; Freedom of Expression Award (for informing or educating audiences on a social issue): Tom Shepard, Scout's Honor; Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: Christopher Nolan, Memento; Special Jury Prize: Actors Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom; World Cinema The Road Home, China; Latin American Jury Prizes: Possible Loves, Brazil, Without a Trace, Mexico; Latin American Special Jury Mention: Coffin Joe: The Strange World of Jose Mojica Marins, Brazil; Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking: Gina, an Actress, age 29; Honorable Mentions, Short Filmmaking: Delusions in Modern Primitivism, Jigsaw Venus, Metropopular, Peter Rabbit and the Crucifix, Pie Fight '69, Sweet, Zen and the Art of Landscaping.

Source: Studio Briefing