The award winners for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival were announced on Saturday night, at a ceremony hosted by actor-writer-director Tim Blake Nelson. Drake Doremus’ romantic drama Like Crazy, starring Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones and current Oscar-nominee Jennifer Lawrence, won the Grand Jury Prize (the fest’s top award) for American dramatic film. The talked-about movie has already been purchased by Paramount Vantage and Indian Paintbrush. A Grand Jury Prize was also awarded to Peter D. Richardson’s How to Die in Oregon, a powerful look at assisted suicide, which won for American documentary.

In the World Cinema categories, Jury Prizes were awarded to Anne Sewitsky’s Norwegian drama, Happy, Happy, about a dissatisfied housewife, and Danfung Dennis’ Afghanistan war documentary Hell and Back Again. The Audience Awards for American films went to Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance, about the struggles of an Iranian lesbian teenager, and Cindy Meehl’s documentary, Buck, about master horse trainer Buck Brannaman. World Cinema audience award winners were Alrick Brown’s Rwandan tale, Kinyarwanda, and Asif Kapadia’s Brazilian documentary, Senna, about legendary race car driver Ayrton Senna. In addition, writer-director Erica Dunton received the Best of NEXT! audience award for her coming-of-age story, to.get.her.

For a full list of Sundance award winners, please go to www.sundance.org/festival.

Share: