Sundance 2012: Festival Awards Announced

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' Takes Jury Prize

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The Sundance Film Festival bestowed its awards Saturday night during a ceremony in Park City. The top jury awards went to Beasts of the Southern Wild (drama) and The House I Live In (documentary). Beasts, a breakout feature from director Benh Zeitlin about a six-year-old girl living with her impoverished father near the Mississippi delta, has been picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. House, from director Eugene Jarecki, explores the injustices of America's 40-year war on drugs.

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Audience awards went to The Surrogate, the drama starring John Hawkes as a man in an iron lung who attempts to lose his virginity, and Searching for Sugar Man, the documenatary about a quest to figure out what happened to an elusive rock star. Both movies found domestic distributors at the festival, with Fox Searchlight paying $6 million for Surrogate and Sony Pictures Classics grabbing Sugar Man for a mid-six figures price tag.  

The full list of winners is below (in the order in which they were announced).

World Cinema Jury Special Prize, Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man, Malik Bendjelloul

World Cinema Documentary Editing: Indie Game: The Movie, Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky

World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary: The Law in These Parts, Ra'anan Alexandrowicz

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize:, Can, Rasit Celikezer

World Cinema Cinematography Award, Drama: David Raedeker, My Brother the Devil

World Cinema Cinematography Award, Documentary: Lars Skree, Putin's Kiss

World Cinema Directing Award, Documentary: Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, 5 Broken Cameras

Best of Next Audience Award: Sleepwalk With Me, Mike Birbiglia

Audience Award, Shorts: The Debutante Hunters, Maria White

Audience Award, World Cinema Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man, Malik Bendjelloul

Audience Award, World Cinema: Valley of Saints, Musa Syeed

Audience Award, U.S. Documentary: The Invisible War, Kirby Dick

Audience Award, U.S. Drama: The Surrogate, Ben Lewin

World Cinema Jury Prize, Drama: Violeta Went to Heaven

World Cinema Directing Award, Drama: Teddy Bear, Mads Matthiesen

World Cinema Screenwriting Award, Drama: Young & Wild, Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutierrez, Pedro Periano, Sebastian Sepulveda

World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary: The Law in These Parts

Special Jury Prizes, U.S. Documentary: Love Free or Die and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Independent Film Producing: Jonathan Schwartz and Andrea Sperling, Smashed and Nobody Walks

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting: The Surrogate

Excellence in Cinematography, U.S. Documentary: Chasing Ice, Jeff Orlowski

Excellence in Cinematography, U.S. Dramatic: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Ben Richardson

U.S. Documentary Editing Award: Detropia, Enat Sidi

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: Safety Not Guaranteed, Derek Connolly

U.S. Directing Award: The Queen of Versailles, Lauren Greenfield

U.S. Directing Award: Middle of Nowhere, Ava DuVernay

Grand Jury Prize, Documentary: The House I Live In, Eugene Jarecki

Grand Jury Prize, Drama: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin

The festival previously announced the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Films nod went to Robot and Frank and Valley of Saints.