Sundance Prizes Announced

A documentary about a family of seven kids growing up in bizarre circumstances is among the big winners at the Sundance Film Festival. 

"The Wolfpack," by first-time filmmaker Crystal Moselle, won the US Grand Jury Prize for documentary at a ceremony in Park City, Utah Saturday night. The movie tells a poignant and at times disturbing story of siblings-- six boys and one girl-- who were confined to an apartment in a Manhattan housing project for most of their lives.

Their father, a Peruvian immigrant and Hare Krishna convert, kept his children under lock and key fearful of the pernicious influence the city would have on them if they roamed freely.

Cut off from the rest of the world, the boys develop a fascination with movies, which constitutes about their only source of entertainment. 

The Grand Jury Prize in the World Documentary category went to...

..."The Russian Woodpecker" by another first-time director, Chad Gracia. It tells the story of a Ukrainian artist and Chernobyl survivor who believes there was a sinister cause behind the nuclear accident.

Festival Director John Cooper Photo: Matt Carey

Below is the press release from the Sundance Institute with the full list of winning films and artists.

Park City, UT --

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to:
The Wolfpack / U.S.A. (Director: Crystal Moselle) — Six bright teenage brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in a Manhattan housing project. All they know of the outside is gleaned from the movies they watch obsessively (and re-create meticulously). Yet as adolescence looms, they dream of escape, ever more urgently, into the beckoning world.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl / U.S.A. (Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Screenwriter: Jesse Andrews) — Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia. Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon.

Still from "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl." Courtesy Indian Paintbrush/Fox Searchlight

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to:
The Russian Woodpecker / United Kingdom (Director: Chad Gracia) — A Ukrainian victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovers a dark secret and must decide whether to risk his life by revealing it, amid growing clouds of revolution and war.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to:
Slow West / United Kingdom, New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: John Maclean) — Set at the end of the nineteenth century, 16-year-old Jay Cavendish journeys across the American frontier in search of the woman he loves. He is joined by Silas, a mysterious traveler, and hotly pursued by an outlaw along the way. Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, Rory McCann.

The Audience Award: U.S. Documentary, Presented by Acura was presented:
Meru / U.S.A. (Directors: Jimmy Chin, E. Chai Vasarhelyi) — Three elite mountain climbers sacrifice everything but their friendship as they struggle through heartbreaking loss and nature’s harshest elements to attempt the never-before-completed Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru, the most coveted first ascent in the dangerous game of Himalayan big wall climbing.

The Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, Presented by Acura was presented to:
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl / U.S.A. (Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Screenwriter: Jesse Andrews) — Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia. Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon.


The Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary was presented to:
Dark Horse / United Kingdom (Director: Louise Osmond) — Dark Horse is the inspirational true story of a group of friends from a workingman's club who decide to take on the elite "sport of kings" and breed themselves a racehorse.

"Dark Horse" Courtesy Picturehouse Cinemas