05 Sundance Film Festival Announces Feature Film Awards

Park City, UT Sundance Institute this evening announced the feature film Jury, Audience and other special awards of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The awards, celebrating artistry, innovation and adventure in independent filmmaking, were presented at the Festival's Awards Ceremony, hosted by Tig Notaro in Park City, Utah; full video of the ceremony is at youtube.com/sff. The ceremony is the culmination of the 2015 Festival, which presented 123 feature-length and 60 short films selected from 12,166 submissions to independent film-loving audiences in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

The competition juries select films from their respective sections to receive a range of awards. New this year, jurors were asked to give an increased number of special jury prizes recognizing excellence in the craft of filmmaking as they deemed appropriate. The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award is still given to a U.S. Dramatic film for excellence in screenwriting. Audience awards are also bestowed upon films in each section.

This year's jurors were: U.S. Documentary Competition: Eugene Hernandez, Kirsten Johnson, Michele Norris, Gordon Quinn and Roger Ross Williams; U.S. Dramatic Competition: Lance Acord, Sarah Flack, Cary Fukunaga, Winona Ryder and Edgar Wright; World Cinema Documentary Competition: Elena Fortes Acosta, Mark Cousins and Ingrid Kopp; World Cinema Dramatic Competition: Mia Hanson-L ve, Col Needham and Taika Waititi; Short Film: K.K. Barrett, Alia Shawkat and Autumn de Wilde; and Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Jury (Science in Film): Paula Apsell, Janna Levin, Brit Marling, Jonathan Nolan and Adam Steltzner.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented by Gordon Quinn to:

The Wolfpack / U.S.A. (Director: Crystal Moselle) Six bright teenage brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in a Manhattan housing project. All they know of the outside is gleaned from the movies they watch obsessively (and re-create meticulously). Yet as adolescence looms, they dream of escape, ever more urgently, into the beckoning world.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented by Edgar Wright to:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl / U.S.A. (Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Screenwriter: Jesse Andrews) Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia. Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented by Mark Cousins to:

The Russian Woodpecker / United Kingdom (Director: Chad Gracia) A Ukrainian victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovers a dark secret and must decide whether to risk his life by revealing it, amid growing clouds of revolution and war.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented by Col Needham to:

Slow West / United Kingdom, New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: John Maclean) Set at the end of the nineteenth century, 16-year-old Jay Cavendish journeys across the American frontier in search of the woman he loves. He is joined by Silas, a mysterious traveler, and hotly pursued by an outlaw along the way. Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, Rory McCann.

The Audience Award: U.S. Documentary, Presented by Acura was presented by Adam Scott to:

Meru / U.S.A. (Directors: Jimmy Chin, E. Chai Vasarhelyi) Three elite mountain climbers sacrifice everything but their friendship as they struggle through heartbreaking loss and nature's harshest elements to attempt the never-before-completed Shark's Fin on Mount Meru, the most coveted first ascent in the dangerous game of Himalayan big wall climbing.

The Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, Presented by Acura was presented by Kevin Pollak to:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl / U.S.A. (Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Screenwriter: Jesse Andrews) Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia. Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon.

The Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary was presented by Patrick Fugit to:

Dark Horse / United Kingdom (Director: Louise Osmond) Dark Horse is the inspirational true story of a group of friends from a workingmans club who decide to take on the elite sport of kings and breed themselves a racehorse.

The Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic was presented by Patrick Fugit to:

Umrika / India (Director and screenwriter: Prashant Nair) When a young village boy discovers that his brother, long believed to be in America, has actually gone missing, he begins to invent letters on his behalf to save their mother from heartbreak, all the while searching for him. Cast: Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Smita Tambe, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang, Prateik Babbar.

The Audience Award: NEXT, Presented by Adobe was presented by Kevin Corrigan to:

James White / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Josh Mond) A young New Yorker struggles to take control of his reckless, self-destructive behavior in the face of momentous family challenges. Cast: Chris Abbott, Cynthia Nixon, Scott Mescudi, Makenzie Leigh, David Call.

The Directing Award: U.S. Documentary was presented by Roger Ross Williams to:

Matthew Heinemanfor Cartel Land / U.S.A., Mexico (Director: Matthew Heineman) In this classic western set in the twenty-firs

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