2013 Sundance Film Festival Announces Jury Awards in Short Filmmaking

 

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute this evening announced the jury prizes and honorable mentions in short filmmaking at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The awards were presented at a ceremony in Park City, Utah. Pictured are Robert Redford and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Park City, UT.

This year’s Short Film program is comprised of 65 short films selected from a record 8,102 submissions. The Short Film jurors are: Mike Farah, President of Production for Funny or Die; Don Hertzfeldt, Academy Award® nominated American independent filmmaker; and Magali Simard, short film programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival.
The Short Film program at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival is presented by YouTube. Twelve short films from the 2013 Festival are featured on The Screening Room, a YouTube channel curated by Sundance Institute. After the Festival, the Institute will continue to curate The Screening Room, highlighting short films each week.

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival, said, “Our Short Film program this year represented a broad range of extraordinary short filmmaking talent, showcasing the diverse approaches to storytelling that one can achieve with limited time. The short film awards further distinguish those that pushed the medium in new directions and affected audiences in powerful and lasting ways.”

Short film award recipients will also be honored at the Festival’s feature film Awards Ceremony, hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on Saturday, January 26 at 7:00 p.m. MT and live-streamed at www.sundance.org/festival.

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs through January 27 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. A complete list of films and events is available at www.sundance.org/festival.

The Short Film Grand Jury Prize was awarded to:

The Whistle / Poland (Director: Grzegorz Zariczny) — Marcin, a lowest-leagues football referee who lives in a small town near Krakow, dreams of better times. At his mother’s urging, he decides to change his life and find himself a girlfriend and a better job.

The Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction was presented to:

Whiplash / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Damien Chazelle) — An aspiring drummer enters an elite conservatory’s top jazz orchestra.

The Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction was presented to:

The Date / Finland (Director and screenwriter: Jenni Toivoniemi) — Tino’s manhood is put to the test in front of two women when he has to host a date for Diablo, the family’s stud cat.

The Short Film Jury Award: Non-fiction was presented to:

Skinningrove / U.S.A. (Director: Michael Almereyda) — Photographer Chris Killip shares unpublished images chronicling time spent among the fiercely independent residents of a remote English fishing village.

The Short Film Jury Award: Animation was presented to:

Irish Folk Furniture / Ireland (Director: Tony Donoghue) — In Ireland, old hand-painted furniture is often associated with hard times, with poverty, and with a time many would rather forget. In this animated documentary, 16 pieces of traditional folk furniture are repaired and returned home.

A Short Film Special Jury Award for Acting was presented to:

Joel Nagle in: Palimpsest / U.S.A. (Director: Michael Tyburski, Screenwriters: Michael Tyburski, Ben Nabors) — A successful house tuner provides clients with a unique form of therapy that examines subtle details in their living spaces.

A Short Film Special Jury Award was presented to:

Until the Quiet Comes / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kahlil Joseph) — Shot in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles, this film deals with themes of violence, camaraderie and spirituality through the lens of magical realism.

 

The Sundance Film Festival®

A program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water, and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative, has showcased the cinematic works of media artists including Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Matthew Barney. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival® sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – HP, Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase Sapphire PreferredSM; Leadership Sponsors – DIRECTV, Entertainment Weekly, FOCUS FORWARD, a partnership between GE and CINELAN, Southwest Airlines, Sprint and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – Adobe, Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., CÎROC Ultra Premium Vodka, FilterForGood®, a partnership between Brita® and Nalgene®, Hilton HHonors and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Intel Corporation, L’Oréal Paris, Recycled Paper Greetings, Stella Artois® and Time Warner Inc. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute’s year-round programs for independent film and theatre artists. www.sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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