Sundance 2013: Rafel Duran Torrent wins Focus Forward Filmmaker Competition Grand Jury Prize

Rafel Duran Torrent has been awarded the Grand Jury Prize in the Focus Forward Filmmaker Competition, sponsored by GE and Cinelan, for his short film Cyborg Foundation. The $100,000 cash prize was presented to him at an awards ceremony held Tuesday at the Sundance Film Festival.

As part of Focus Forward’s collaboration with the Sundance Institute, the filmmaker, from Barcelona, Spain, will be invited to a ShortsLab at the Sundance Institute during 2013.

Runner-up awards were presented to Jared P. Scott and Kelly Nyks (The Artificial Leaf, USA); Paul Lazarus (Slingshot, USA); Kim Munsamy (Bones Don’t Lie and Don’t Forget, Guatemala); and Callum Cooper (Mine Kafon, UK).

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The short documentary film competition attracted more than 600 submissions from 69 countries.

The jury included Sundance Film Festival senior programmer Caroline Libresco, actress Daryl Hannah and filmmakers Barbara Kopple, Jose Padilha, Joe Berlinger, Floyd Webb and Peter Wintonick. The winning films are live and available to view for free on the Focus Forward website, along with the 15 other competition finalists, at http://focusforwardfilms.com/finalists.

Cinelan, which is a filmmaker-driven video publisher, has showcased the Focus Forward program at festivals from Sundance to Berlin, Tribeca, Los Angeles and Busan, South Korea. The Focus Forward films have been viewed more than 10 million times in more than 156 countries.

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“It is an honor to be back at the Sundance Film Festival with the Focus Forward initiative,” said Cinelan’s Morgan Spurlock and Karol Martesko-Fenster. “This is where we launched the program exactly one year ago and are thrilled to round out the 30 films with five world premieres during this year’s festival.  We are excited about the global response to the program, and the measurable impact these films have had, and are looking forward to new partnerships taking the program to the next level during the course of 2013.”

Focus Forward – Short Films, Big Ideas is a series of 30 three-minute nonfiction films inspired by GE’s vision of innovative people serving as the catalyst for world change. Produced by leading documentary filmmakers, the films explore the power of ideas and invention and, after appearing at film festivals, are distributed across cable and satellite VOD, gaming system networks, and Internet Free On Demand services, as well as in theaters and on DVD.

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The cash prize winners of the Filmmaker Competition are as follows:

Grand Jury Prize, $100,000: Rafel Duran Torrent (Cyborg Foundation), Spain

Winner, 2^nd Place, $50,000: Jared P. Scott & Kelly Nyks (The Artificial Leaf), USA

Winner, 3^rd Place, $30,000: Paul Lazarus (Slingshot), USA

Winner, 4^th Place, $10,000: Kim Munsamy (Bones Don’t Lie and Don’t Forget), Guatemala

Winner, 5^th Place, $10,000: Callum Cooper (Mine Kafon), UK