Posted by Larry Gleeson

2022 Sundance Film Festival Awards Announcement, Satellite Screenings, & Final Day on the New Frontier Spaceship Top Highlights of the Ninth Day of Festival Programming 

PARK CITY, UT (January 29, 2022) – Sundance Film Festival welcomed audiences to its ninth day of screenings and conversations featuring some of the most notable visionaries in independent film, new media, and culture-at-large.

The festival announced the Audience Awards alongside Grand Jury and Special Jury Prizes for films in the U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Documentary, World Dramatic, and World Documentary Competitions, NEXT, and the Short Film program. Winners included Nanny (U.S. Dramatic), The Exiles (U.S. Documentary), All That Breathes (World Cinema Documentary), Utama (World Cinema Dramatic), Cha Cha Real Smooth (Audience Award, U.S. Dramatic) and Navalny (Audience Award, U.S. Documentary; Festival Favorite Award). All winners are detailed here. Screenings of the award-winning films will play online all weekend long.

The New Frontier Spaceship also celebrated its last day in orbit with Artist Spotlights and an open discussion hosted by Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Jesse Damiani on NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and the rapid proliferation of decentralized, autonomous organizations (DAOs).

The festival’s Satellite Screens kicked off yesterday as well. From Maryland to California, eight feature films from the 2022 lineup are playing this weekend at seven partner locations around the country where they are celebrating independent film and supporting like-minded arthouse theaters.

Each year, Sundance serves as a cultural launchpad, helping to expand audience horizons through film and the conversations that occur the minute that credits roll. Continuing to foster this spirit of discussion into 2022, Sundance Film Festival programs a series of panels across discipline and topics to keep the conversation going.

DAY NINE HIGHLIGHTS

• 2022 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS
  • U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: Nikyatu Jusu for Nanny
  • U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: Ben Klein and Violet Columbus for The Exiles
  • World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: Alejandro Loayza Grisi for Utama
  • World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: Shaunak Sen for All That Breathes
  • Audience Award: U.S. Documentary: Navalny
  • Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic: Cha Cha Real Smooth
  • Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic: Girl Picture
  • Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary: The Territory
  • Audience Award: NEXT: Framing Agnes
  • Festival Favorite Award: Navalny 
  • Directing Award: U.S. Documentary: Reid Davenport for I Didn’t See You There
  • Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic: Jamie Dack for Palm Trees and Power Lines
  • World Cinema Documentary: Simon Lereng Wilmont for A House Made Of Splinters
  • Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic: Maryna Er Gorbach for KLONDIKE
  • Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic: K.D. Dávila for Emergency
  • Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: U.S. Documentary: Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput for Fire Of Love
  • U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Uncompromising Artistic Vision: Bradley Rust Gray for blood
  • U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble Cast: John Boyega, Nicole Beharie, Selenis Leyva, Connie Britton, Olivia Washington, London Covington, and Michael K Williams for 892
  • U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Impact for Change: Aftershock
  • U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Creative Vision: Descendant
  • World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Documentary Craft: The Territory
  • World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Excellence In Verité Filmmaking: Midwives
  • World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Innovative Spirit: Leonor Will Never Die
  • World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Acting: Teresa Sánchez for Dos Estaciones
  • NEXT Innovator Award presented by Adobe: Framing Agnes
  • Short Film Grand Jury Prize: The Headhunter’s Daughter
  • Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction: IF I GO WILL THEY MISS ME
  • Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction: Dania Bdeir for Warsha
  • Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction: Samir Karahoda for Displaced
  • Short Film Jury Award: Animation: Joe Hsieh for Night Bus
  • Short Film Special Jury Award: Ensemble Cast: Zélia Duncan, Bruna Linzmeyer, Camila Rocha, Clarissa Ribeiro, and Lorre Motta for A wild patience has taken me here
  • Short Film Special Jury Award: Screenwriting: Sara Driver for Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver
  • Previously announced:
    • 2022 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: After Yang
    • Sundance Institute | Amazon Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction: Su Kim for Free Chol Soo Lee
    • Sundance Institute | Amazon Studios Producers Award for Fiction: Amanda Marshall God’s Country
    • Sundance Institute | Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Nonfiction: Toby Shimin
    • Sundance Institute | Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Fiction: Dody Dorn
    • Sundance Institute | NHK Award: Hasan Hadi for The President’s Cake
• NEW FRONTIER ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
  • FLAT EARTH VR
    • Lucas Rizzotto (Lead Artist) shared insight on how the project started as a joke in response to the idea that VR is an “empathy machine,” and asked whether that is still the case when the premise is entirely delusional.
    • Lucas discussed how he actually consulted flat Earthers in designing the experience and learned that ultimately, “flat Earthers are not united by their belief, but by their disbelief.” There is no singular coherent flat Earth theory and everyone has different ideas of what a flat Earth means and looks like.
    • Lucas also expressed concern about VR propaganda, and how XR creators could use their work to spread misinformation and emotionally manipulate and control audiences in showing them a “reality” regardless of whether or not it’s based in truth. He urged XR creators to be mindful of the impact their work could have and how it may be used by others in a way they might not have intended.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The Festival takes place digitally via our enhanced online platform at Festival.Sundance.org, on the New Frontier Spaceship, a bespoke immersive platform allowing festival-goers to gather virtually, and in-person at seven Satellite Screens venues around the country during the Festival’s second weekend. Additional programming includes a daily talk show (“How to Fest: Daily”), and Satellite Screen conversations as well as partner offerings in the Festival Village.To note, all talks are available online via live stream or posted later on festival.sundance.org to view globally. Sign up for an account at festival.sundance.org to access online. All times are U.S. Mountain Time.

ABOUT SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Flee, CODA, Passing, Summer Of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, On The Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Precious, The Cove, Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Reservoir Dogs and sex, lies, and videotape.

The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute. 2022 Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, AMC+, Chase Sapphire, Adobe; Leadership Sponsors – Amazon Studios, DIRECTV, DoorDash, Dropbox, Netflix, Omnicom Group, WarnerMedia, XRM Media; Sustaining Sponsors – Aflac, Audible, Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Dell Technologies, IMDbPro, Michelob ULTRA Pure Gold, Rabbit Hole Bourbon & Rye, Unity Technologies, University of Utah Health, White Claw Hard Seltzer; Media Sponsors – The Atlantic, IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Shadow and Act, Variety, Vulture. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Visit sundance.org/festival for more.