NEW YORK, NY.- In the Summers, an independent film about two sisters navigating fraught summer visits with their father, won the top prize in the Sundance Film Festivals U.S. dramatic competition Friday. The movie also won the competitions directing award for its first-time filmmaker, Alessandra Lacorazza.
This film snuck up on us, read a citation delivered by the jury, which was made up of director Debra Granik, cartoonist Adrian Tomine and producer Lena Waithe. A film like this can easily slip through the cracks, and for that reason we have chosen to shed light on this beautiful piece of cinema and we hope it finds the audience it so well deserves.
That appeared to be the animating ethos for many of the jurys picks, which went to worthy but lower-profile entries in competition, though the screenwriting award was given to Jesse Eisenberg for his buzzy comedy, A Real Pain, a road-trip movie he directed and starred in alongside Kieran Culkin. The film sold to Searchlight for $10 million in one of the festivals biggest deals.
Audience awards voted on by festival attendees went to the likes of Didi, a teen coming-of-age movie from Sean Wang; the documentary Daughters, about four girls attending a daddy-daughter dance with their imprisoned fathers; and the Irish rap movie Kneecap.
Here are the rest of the top awards. For a complete list of winners, including short films and special jury prizes, go to sundance.org.
GRAND JURY PRIZES
U.S. Dramatic Competition: In the Summers
U.S. Documentary Competition: Porcelain War
World Cinema Dramatic Competition: Sujo
World Cinema Documentary Competition: A New Kind of Wilderness
Next Innovator Award: Little Death
Directing, U.S. Dramatic: Alessandra Lacorazza, In The Summers
Directing, U.S. Documentary: Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, Sugarcane
Directing, World Cinema Dramatic: Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi, In the Land Of Brothers
Directing, World Cinema Documentary: Benjamin Ree, Ibelin
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic: Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award, U.S. Documentary: Carla Gutiérrez, Frida
AUDIENCE AWARDS
Festival Favorite Award: Daughters
U.S. Dramatic Competition: Didi
U.S. Documentary Competition: Daughters
World Cinema Dramatic Competition: Girls Will Be Girls
World Cinema Documentary Competition: Ibelin
Next: Kneecap
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.