2008 Sundance Film Festival hands out prizes

Sir Ben Kingsley stars in Audience Award winner “The Wackness”
Last night filmmakers, onloookers and suckers who bought a festival pass for the Sundance Film Festival crowded into the Park City Racquet Club to celebrate the end of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.The closing ceremony and awards were hosted by actor William H. Macy.
The Grand Jury prize was dished out by director Quentin Tarantino (himself a Sundance alumni who didn’t win in 1992 for “Reservoir Dogs”) to director Courtney Hunt for “Frozen River.”
“Frozen River” tells the story of a desperate trailer mom and a Mohawk woman who team up to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada.
The Audience Award for Best Documentary was presented to director Josh Tickell for “Fields of Fuel.” The film centers around Tickell who takes on big oil, big government and big soy with his Veggie Van finding solutions for these problems in plaecs few people have looked.
The Audience Award for Best Dramatic film was presented to director Jonathan Levine for “The Wackness.” The film is about a troubled teenage drug dealer in New York who trades marijuana for therapy sessions with a drug-loving psychiatrist and in the process falls for the doctor’s daughter.
The World Cinema dramatic prize went to Jens Jonsson from Sweden and his film “King of Ping Pong” (Ping Pongkingen). And the World Cinema documentary prize went to James Marsh from the UK for his film “Man on Wire” about French artist Philippe Petit and his daring dance between New York’s Twin Towers and the subsequent arrest for doing so which has become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”
The World Cinema Audience award was handed out to Amin Matalqa from Jordan whose film “Captain Abu Raed” is about an aging airport janitor who is mistaken for an airline pilot by a group of poor neighborhood children and whose fantastic stories offer hope for them. It makrs the first feature film to come out of Jordan in 50 years.
Here is a list of some other awards:
Directing Award: Documentary – Nanette Burstein, “American Teen”
Directing Award: Dramatic – Lance Hammer, “Ballast”
World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary – Nino Kirtadze, “Durakovo: Village of Fools”
World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic – Anna Melikyan, “Mermaid”
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award – Alex Rivera and David Riker, “Sleep Dealer”
World Cinema Screenwriting Award – Samuel Benchetrit, “I Always Wanted To Be a Gangster”
Documentary Editing Award – Joe Bini, Roman Polanski: “Wanted and Desired”
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award – Irena Dol, “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins”
Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary – Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring, “Patti Smith: Dream of Life”
Excellence in Cinematography Award: Dramatic – Lol Crawley, “Ballast”
World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary – al Massad, “Recycle”
World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic – Askild Vik Edvardsen, “King of Ping Pong”
Special Jury Prize: Documentary – Lisa F. Jackson, “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo”
Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - The Spirit of Independence – Chusy Haney-Jardine, “Anywhere, USA”
Special Jury Prize: Dramatic for Work by an Ensemble Cast – Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brad Henke, “Choke”
World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Dramatic – Ernesto Contreras, “Párpados Azules” (Blue Eyelids)
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