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‘The Birth of a Nation’ wins grand jury and audience award
Posted On Feb 09 2016
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The Sundance Film Festival’s winners list handed down Saturday included “Weiner”, the sex scandal documentary about Anthony Weiner’s failed bid for New York Mayor.
Nate Parker’s directorial debut, Birth of a Nation, garnered rapturous acclaim throughout this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and Parker rode this riptide of reaction toward the festival’s top two prizes.
“The Birth of a Nation“, a drama based on the slave revolt in 1831, by director Nate Parker swept the top prize at the competition in Utah.
NEXT, audience award: “First Girl I Loved”.
The Audience Award for Documentary was awarded to Jim: The James Foley Story, about the American photojournalist killed by ISIS members in Syria.
6 p.m., “Life, Animated” (U.S. Documentary, Directing Award); 9 p.m., “Morris From America” (U.S. Dramatic, Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award).
The directing prize went to Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s “Swiss Army Man”, which features Paul Dano as a man stranded on a desert island who comes across the washed-up corpse of Daniel Radcliffe.
Special Jury Award for Editing: Penny Lane and Thom Stylinski for Nuts! .
“Birth of a Nation” may not earn close to the box office returns of a “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when it’s eventually released to the wider public, but Parker’s ambitions are no less grand.
Both the audience and grand jury prizes for foreign documentary went to Sonita, about an 18-year-old Afghan refugee illegally living in Tehran and who dreams of becoming the next Rihanna.
World cinema documentary, directing award: “All These Sleepless Nights”.
As revealed earlier in the week, Jim Cummings won the short film-making award for his film Thunder Road.
US documentary, directing award: “Life, Animated”.
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