This year's Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony at the Racquet Club was a much more low-key and intimate affair, since it was not staged for a TV broadcast.
[Pictured after the awards ceremony (left to right), Jeff Feuerzeig ("The Devil and Daniel Johnston"), Noah Baumbach ("The Squid and the Whale"), Miranda July ("Me and You and Everyone We Know"), and Ira Sach ("Forty Shades of Blue"). Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE]
Taking a moment to reflect on the past ten days at Sundance, festival director Geoff Gilmore said Saturday night, "I have been doing this festival for a long time and in the end what stays with you is certainly not what happens tonight, it is the moments that make up the festival." Noting such moments as the nervousness before a first screening or discovering a favorite film other than one's own, continuing he added, again addressing the filmmakers, "The memories that I will cherish about this festival are about you and your films and for that I thank you."
Prior to presenting the final award of the night, actor John C. Reilly went into the crowd to find a glass of wine and then raised a glass, calling out each of the dramatic competition filmmakers by name. This is, he said, "a toast to filmmakers who dreamed to try...thank you for trying."
"This is its been a long process to get this film made," said Ira Sachs while accepting his Dramatic Grand Jury Award, "We have been at it for about 7 or 8 years." Sachs later told indieWIRE, after the ceremony that he hopes the prize will help him gain attention from a potential distributor.
"I came to this festival for the fist time 12 years ago with my first short film," recalled Eugene Jarecki, while accepting his documentary Grand Jury Prize for "Why We Fight". "What Sundance has become is more than just a film festival, far more than just a platform for independent voices," Jarecki added. Continuing he said, " The world is looking at America as a beacon," mentioning the "permanent military culture," Concluding he said that he worried that "the world (is) seeing America as a very saddening beacon."
Craig Brewer, director of "Hustle & Flow," accepted his dramatic audience award with producer Stephanie Allain, who produced the film with director John Singleton. "I know we are living in a time where there is a lot of this red state, blue state cynicism," Brewer said on stage, "We really wanted to make a movie about dreams -- Sundance is the dream, we are just very thankful -- but more than anything we want to send out the love to all the guys who are toiling away in the middle of America thinking that they are on Pluto, far away from the heat..."
After the ceremony, Brewer told indieWIRE that he is getting back together with the "Hustle & Flow" team of producers John Singleton & Stephanie Allain and cinemttographer Amy Vincent to shoot a new movie. They will be begin production this summer on "Black Snake Moan."
Accepting the documentary audience award, "Murderball" producer Jeff Mandel recalled that in April 200 when Dana Adam Shapiro first read proposed a movie was hard to imagine here at Sundance. "Its fantastic and hard to come up with much more than that," he said, thanking the quad rugby players who participated in the film.
"Wherever our film (has played), I have seen that human hearts have opened," director Peter Raymont, maker of "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire," said in a statement sent to the ceremony and read by Diane Weyermann, accepting the audience prize for the international doc competition. "It is a dream of every filmmaker to open those hearts and move people to action."
"Thank you very very much, it is such a pleasure to be here," said Susanne Bier, accepting her audience award for "Brothers", "It is an amazing thing to receive this award, as a filmmaker you want to reach out to your audience without losing substance," she said, "Receiving awards is a confirmation of that possibility." She added that IFC Films would release the film in the U.S. in May.
Noah Baumbach (pictured right, photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE), writer and director of "The Squid and the Whale," was honored with a pair of prizes, one for writing and another for directing. "I really want to thank Sundance," he said while accepting his writing prize. "I really drew on a very personal part of my life and I had tremendous support once I showed it to my friend Wes Anderson," Baumbach said, "He had heard me tell a lot of the stories socially and said, 'You should probably write that down.'" Moments later, accepting his directing award, he added, "This is really great, I want to thank the jury again, not only that you gave me these awards, but that you are people that I admire -- I am really touched and excited."
Before presenting the short film prizes, actor Joseph Gordon Leavitt, starring in the Sundance films "Brick" and "Mysterious Skin," took a moment to advocate on behalf of short subject movies, "Wouldn't it be nice if movie theaters would play a short film rather then 10 to 15 minutes of commercials before the trailers even start." Accepting the award for her doc short, "Family Portrait," Patricia Riggen noted that she made her movie with $500 and a borrowed camera and said, "This happens when you don't know what to say, thank you very much Sundance for inviting the film."
"I am speechless," said the director of "The Hero," Zeze Gamboa in a statement sent to the ceremony. "With (this) first feature film, and from an unknown part of the world where there is no film industry, I am very very happy."
While Sundance does not present acting awards, each year the festival's dramatic jury singles out an actor. This year, two actors were honored. Accepting her special jury prize for acting, for her role in "Junebug," Amy Adams said, "I have never really won anything, except for best hair back in 9th grade," while "Thumbsucker" star Lou Pucci said, "Holy Crap...that's sick," thanking Mike Mills, "I have nothing to say except thank God...that's awesome...OK, bye."
