The world cinema screenwriting award went to France's Samuel Benchetrit for his "I Always Wanted to be a Gangster."
In the world cinema dramatic category, Sweden's "King of Ping Pong," amusingly bleak in the classic Scandinavian manner, took the world cinema jury prize for director Jens Jonsson and the cinematography award for Askild Vik Edvardsen. Two other films won cinematography awards: the documentary "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," shot by Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring, and the world documentary "Recycle" by Mahmoud Al Massad.
Aside from "Man on Wire," Sundance gave three other audience awards: The dramatic prize went to Jonathan Levine's teen comedy "The Wackness"; the documentary prize to "Fields of Fuel," Josh Tickell's look at the oil crisis; and the world cinema dramatic award to Amin Matalqa's "Captain Abu Raed," Jordan's first feature film in half a century.
Though they didn't win anything, two other docs found favor with Sundance audiences, most notably "Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains." The story of the aftermath of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes in which 16 young men survived for 72 days by eating the flesh of those who died has been told before in "Alive!," but "Stranded" improves on that with penetrating interviews with the survivors.
During the question-and-answer session at the film's premiere, director Gonzalo Arijon, a friend of the survivors since childhood, introduced Roberto Francois, one of the two men who walked for an excruciating 10 days through the mountains to reach help. Francois held the audience spellbound as he talked about what the experience had meant to him. "Make plans for 100 years," he said, "but you must be ready to die at any moment."
In a different vein altogether was Sacha Gervasi's endearing "Anvil! The True Story of Anvil," likely the only heartwarming film ever made about a heavy metal band. It follows the affable members of Canada's longest-lived metal group as they depart on the most comically haphazard rock tour since the fictional days of "This Is Spinal Tap!"
Not getting any awards on the dramatic side was "Sugar," written and directed by "Half Nelson's" Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Made with care and concern and a nice sense of unforced reality, it follows a young baseball prospect from the Dominican Republic as he struggles to adjust to rural America's minor leagues.
