PARK CITY, Utah — It was a decision that was both sensible and Solomonic. The Sundance Film Festival split its grand jury prize for best dramatic film between the competition's two consensus favorites and added emphasis to its Saturday night decision by giving each co-winner a second major award. It provided a satisfying ending to what, in terms of overall quality and lack of hair-pulling fiascoes, was the most successful festival in years.
The dramatic jury divided its top prize between a pair of writer-directors. Karyn Kusama's "Girlfight" and Kenneth Lonergan's "You Can Count on Me" were the popular co-winners, with Kusama also claiming the directing award and Lonergan taking home the Waldo Salt screenwriting award.
Kusama's film, a potent feminist melodrama about the struggles of an aspiring teenage boxer that's been acquired for distribution by Screen Gems, was touted as a possible winner from its first tumultuous screening. Kusama seemed overwhelmed by the awards ("My heart is beating so fast, I'm so nervous all of a sudden") but retained the presence of mind to thank executive producer John Sayles ("my mentor, a great teacher and a great friend") and to give a message to her fellow directors.
"To all those filmmakers whose films aren't here, keep on rockin'," Kusama said with passion. "Your films will live on beyond all of us, and that's all that matters."
Lonergan's very different but equally accomplished film had just as many partisans. A successful New York-based playwright ("This Is Our Youth"), Lonergan constructed an artful tale about the conflicting lifestyles of a devoted sister and brother, deftly played by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. Made with delicacy and tact, this beautifully textured film has an unmatched gift for character, allowing its funny and moving people to be exactly who they are.
Wearing an orange sweater that color-coordinated perfectly with the Sundance signage, Lonergan, whose original script became "Analyze This" nine years and 14 writers after he wrote the first draft, noted that "You Can Count On Me" was the first screenplay he'd ever written "that came out exactly as I wanted it."
'Long Night's Journey Into Day' Is Top Doc
On the documentary side, the grand jury prize winner was Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann's revealing look at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, "Long Night's Journey Into Day." Featuring intensely emotional confrontations between perpetrators of apartheid-related violence and the relatives of their victims, "Journey" exposes the dehumanization the country's racial policies caused and illustrates the human need for forgiveness and how painfully difficult that can be to achieve. The co-directors praised each other, with Hoffmann thanking Reid for, "when I said someone should make a documentary on this subject, having the audacity to say that someone should be us."
Though it didn't take the top doc prize, the evening's biggest nonfiction winner was Marc Singer's "Dark Days," which earned the audience award for documentary, the freedom of expression award and half of the cinematography award. More than five years in the making, "Dark Days" is the story of the people who live in Manhattan's underground train tunnels, and it has a back story as strong and compelling as its on-screen material.
A former model, the British-born Singer not only lived underground with his subjects for two years, he used them as his entire crew. More a homeless advocate than a filmmaker, he thought of making "Dark Days" only as a way to earn money to get these people above ground and rented his first camera without even knowing how to load it.
"I just wanted to get them out," he said simply earlier in the week. "They deserve better than that."
Looking a bit like a medieval monk with his close-cropped hair and hooded sweatshirt, Singer didn't forget to thank the people who did teach him how to load that camera.
The other half of the documentary cinematography award went to Andrew Young for his and Susan Todd's lively survey, "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States." Young added an unexpected note to the night when he thanked Todd for being "my friend, my wife, my lover and, as of 6:30 last night, the mother of my son."
On the dramatic side, the cinematography award went to Tom Krueger for "Committed," Lisa Krueger's wry fable about love and, yes, commitment, that features the unmistakable and irresistible sense of humor that marked Krueger's debut, "Manny and Lo."
Starring Heather Graham as a young woman with a knack for faith married to a man who doesn't seem to deserve it, "Committed" illustrates Krueger's fascination with what she calls "different forms of denial, with people's ability to create visions of the world apart from reality. The way people fool themselves, and how their choice of words reveal that, that's inherently funny to me."
Special Awards Honor Outstanding Acting
