Sundance festival revels in 'Water'

At the crosstown Slamdance Film Festival, one film, Greg Kohs' "Song Sung Blue," a documentary about a Milwaukee-based singing duo that covers Neil Diamond songs, won both the grand jury prize and the audience award. The grand jury prize for narrative went to Tom Quinn's "The New Year Parade," and the narrative audience award was given to Ryan Piotrowicz's "The Project."

Sundance's dramatic directing award went to Nanette Burstein's "American Teen," based in Warsaw, Ind. On the world side, documentary directing was given to Nino Kirtadze for "Durakovo: Village of Fools," and the dramatic prize went to Russia's Anna Melikyan for the whimsical "Mermaid." There were also two editing awards: to world documentary's Irena Dol for "The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins" and to Joe Bini for his work on the powerful competition doc "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."

Despite having given out all these awards, the Sundance juries were not ready to quit and handed out four more special jury prizes. The recipients were Ernesto Contreras, director of "Blue Eyelids"; Lisa F. Jackson, director of "Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo"; Chusy Haney-Jardine for "Anywhere, USA"; and the ensemble cast (Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald and Brad Henke) of "Choke," written and directed by Clark Gregg and based on the novel by "Fight Club's" Chuck Palahniuk. And with that, Sundance rested.

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kenneth.turan@latimes.com