Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone — a grim and gritty drama about a girl who treks through the Ozarks to find her missing father — cleaned up at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, winning both the dramatic competition Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award. Roadside Attractions will distribute the film, based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, later this year.
How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor’s debut film, quirktastically named HappyThankYouMorePlease, took the Dramatic Audience Award. Radnor wrote, directed and stars in the film, described as an “indie” modern-day romantic comedy. Restrepo, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s documentary about their year spent embedded with the Second Platoon fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, won the U.S. documentary grand jury prize.
Last year’s Grand Jury Prize winner Precious went on to make over $45 mil. at the box office and, of course, catapult Mo’Nique from VH1 reality show host to potential Oscar winner.
The complete list of winners from this year’s festival:
U.S. Dramas:
Grand Jury Prize: Winter’s Bone
Audience Award: happythankyoumoreplease
Directing: Eric Mendelsohn, 3 Backyards
Screenwriting: Debra Granik, Winter’s Bone
Cinematography: Zak Mulligan, Obselidia
Special Jury Prize: Sympathy for Delicious
U.S. Documentaries:
Grand Jury Prize: Restrepo
Audience Award: Waiting for Superman
Directing: Leon Gast, Smash His Camera
Editing: Penelope Falk, Joan Rivers - A Piece Of Work
Cinematography: Kirsten Johnson, Laura Poitras, The Oath
Special Jury Prize: Gasland
World Cinema, Dramas
Grand Jury Prize: Animal Kingdom
Audience Award: Contracorriente
Directing: Juan Carlos Valdivia, Southern District
Screenwriting: Juan Carlos Valdivia, Southern District
Cinematography: Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat, The Man Next Door
Special Jury Prize, breakout performance, Tatiana Maslany, Grown Up Movie Star
World Cinema, Documentaries
Grand Jury Prize: The Red Chapel
Audience Award: Wasteland
Directing: Christian Frei, Space Tourists
Editing: Joelle Alexis, A Film Unfinished
Cinematography: Kate McCullough, Michael Lavelle, His & Hers
Special Jury Prize: Enemies of the People
Jury Prize Short Film
U.S.: Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln
International: The Six Dollar Fifty Man
