PARK CITY, Utah — "Forty Shades of Blue," Ira Sachs' quiet, reflective story of an aging music impresario, a younger woman and the man's adult son, was awarded the Sundance Film Festival's American dramatic grand jury prize on Saturday at the Park City Racquet Club.
Taking the American documentary grand jury prize was Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight," a careful analysis that places the war in Iraq in the context of the needs of the military-industrial complex first identified by President Eisenhower.
Though it didn't take the top dramatic prize, Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale" did exceptionally well, taking both the dramatic directing award and the Waldo Salt screenwriting award. Incisive, heartfelt and painfully funny, "The Squid and the Whale" is a film that shows how even familiar material -- the way a family's life turns when the parents get divorced -- can be transfixing if intelligence and ability are added to the mix.
With wonderfully nuanced performances from Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as the parents and Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline as their sons, this remarkable film, at once clear-eyed and emotional, personal yet unsparing, is a model of what independent films can achieve.
Two other Sundance films walked away with two awards. Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow," the festival's first major sale, lived up to its Hollywood-in-hip-hop-disguise reputation by winning the American dramatic audience award as well as the cinematography award for Amelia Vincent.
Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro's "Murderball," which introduces viewers to the harshly competitive world of quadriplegic wheelchair rugby, took the American documentary audience award and a special jury prize for editing for Geoffrey Richman and Conor O'Neill.
For the first time at Sundance, grand jury awards were also given in world documentary and world dramatic categories.
The world documentary award went to Leonard Retel Helmrich's "Shape of the Moon," which spends quality time with a Christian family in heavily Muslim Indonesia.
The world dramatic prize went to "The Hero," an involving drama from Angola, a country that has recently emerged from a 30-year civil war. Set in an uncertain society, the film focuses on how a veteran who lost a leg in the fighting attempts to adjust to civilian life. It offers a unique look from inside a cinematically underrepresented country as well as a neglected continent.
