29/01/2024 - Besides the drama by Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s Norwegian doc A New Kind of Wilderness has snagged the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize

It’s a wrap for the 2024 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. This year, the Utah-based gathering unspooled from 18-28 January. Four main competitions traditionally form the core of the festival, marking a separation between documentaries and fiction films, as well as US and international titles.

On 26 January, the winners of the Jury Prizes and Audience Awards were announced during a ceremony at the Ray Theater in Park City. The awards ceremony occurred two days before the conclusion of the event, which took place in person in Park City and Salt Lake City, with a selection of titles available online for US audiences as well as press and industry representatives.

Among this year’s European prizewinners, the Norwegian documentary A New Kind of Wilderness [+see also:
film review
film profile] came out on top, snagging the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize. Helmed by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen and produced by Mari Bakke Riise, the picture follows a family living in a forest in an attempt to be wild and free. When a tragic event changes everything, they are forced to adjust to modern society. “The film is embedded with deep humanism, and a sensitivity and vulnerability that never veer into sentimentalism. It's skilfully edited, and beautifully filmed and scored, with intimate access inside a very special family. It's rare to see classically vérité films of this calibre,” opined the jurors.

Another Norwegian documentary, Benjamin Ree’s Ibelin [+see also:
film review
interview: Benjamin Ree
film profile], was also rewarded. The picture, in receipt of the Directing Award and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, zooms in on a young gamer called Mats Steen, who died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from his online friends around the world. 

Meanwhile, Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s Sujo [+see also:
film review
film profile], a co-production between Mexico, the USA and France, scooped the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. The story sees a four-year-old orphan of a cartel criminal growing into a man and finding that his father’s destiny may be inescapable. The jurors described it as “a breathtaking film that created its own unique cinematic vocabulary – of a childhood born amidst violence yet protected by the embrace of women, strangers and family alike”.

Moreover, the Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic went to Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls [+see also:
film review
film profile] (India/France/Norway), whilst Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap [+see also:
film review
film profile] (UK/Ireland) received the Audience Award: NEXT, and Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi’s Afghan-set drama In the Land of Brothers [+see also:
film review
interview: Raha Amirfazli, Alireza Gha…
film profile] (Iran/France/Netherlands) won the Directing Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

Here is the list of this year’s main award winners:

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Grand Jury Prize
Sujo [+see also:
film review
film profile] - Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez (Mexico/USA/France)

Best Directing
Raha Amirfazli, Alireza Ghasemi - In the Land of Brothers [+see also:
film review
interview: Raha Amirfazli, Alireza Gha…
film profile] (Iran/France/Netherlands)

Audience Award
Girls Will Be Girls [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Shuchi Talati (India/France/Norway)

World Cinema Documentary Competition

Grand Jury Prize
A New Kind of Wilderness [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Silje Evensmo Jacobsen (Norway)

Best Directing
Benjamin Ree - Ibelin [+see also:
film review
interview: Benjamin Ree
film profile] (Norway)

Audience Award
Ibelin – Benjamin Ree

US Dramatic Competition

Grand Jury Award
In the Summers - Alessandra Lacorazza (USA)

Best Directing
Alessandra Lacorazza – In the Summers

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award
Jesse Eisenberg - A Real Pain (USA/Poland)

Special Jury Award: Ensemble Cast
Dìdi – Sean Wang (USA)

Special Jury Award: Acting
Preeti Panigrahi - Girls Will Be Girls 

Festival Favourite Award    
Daughters - Angela Patton, Natalie Rae (USA)

Audience Award
Dìdi – Sean Wang

US Documentary Competition

Grand Jury Prize
Porcelain War – Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev (USA/Ukraine)

Best Directing
Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie - Sugarcane (USA/Canada)

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award
Carla Gutiérrez – FRIDA (USA/Mexico)

Audience Award
Daughters - Angela Patton, Natalie Rae

NEXT

Innovator Award
Little Death - Jack Begert (USA)

Audience Award
Kneecap [+see also:
film review
film profile] - Rich Peppiatt (Ireland/UK)

Short Film Grand Jury Prize 
The Masterpiece – Alex Lora Cercos (Spain)

Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction 
Say Hi After You Die - Kate Jean Hollowell (USA)

Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction 
The Stag - An Chu (Taiwan)   

Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction 
Bob’s Funeral - Jack Dunphy (USA)

Short Film Jury Award: Animation 
Bug Diner - Phoebe Jane Hart (USA)

Short Film Special Jury Prize for Directing 
The Looming - Masha Ko (USA)

Short Film Special Jury Prize for Directing 
Makoto Nagahisa - Pisko the Crab Child Is in Love (Japan)

Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize
Love Me – Sam Zuchero, Andy Zuchero (USA)

Sundance Institute Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction
The Battle for Laikipia - Toni Kamau (USA)

Sundance Institute Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction 
Stress Positions - Brad Becker-Parton (USA)