The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its Jury and Audience Award winners for 2023.
The day’s big winners included Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version, which claimed both the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in U.S. Dramatic Competition, as well as A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand And One for Focus Features, which took the Grand Jury Prize in the same section.
Other titles taking top awards included festival favourite Radical from filmmaker Christopher Zalla and 3Pas Studios; Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project from Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, which took the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary; Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia, which nabbed the U.S. Documentary Audience Award; and D. Smith’s Kokomo City, which dominated the NEXT section as it claimed both the Innovator and Audience Award.
Written, directed and produced by Keshavarz for Archer Grey, The Persian Version watches as a large Iranian-American family gathers for the patriarch’s heart transplant, with a secret then being uncovered that catapults an estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past.
A Thousand And One follows the unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor) as she kidnaps 6-year-old Terry (Josiah Cross) from the foster care system, convinced it’s one last, necessary crime on the path to redemption. Holding on to their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability in New York City. Lena Waithe is among the producers.
Radical follows a frustrated teacher (Eugenio Derbez) exploring new educational methods in a Mexican border town, with Going To Mars meditating on the life of poet Nikki Giovanni, and Beyond Utopia following families fleeing North Korea. Then, there’s the Magnolia Pictures-acquired Kokomo City, charting the experiences of four trans sex workers, as they confront the dichotomy between the Black community and themselves.
The 2023 festival has spotlighted 111 features and 64 shorts, selected from 15,856 submissions, via screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City, and at the Sundance Resort. Over 75% of both short and feature-length works, along with many selected Indie Episodics, will be available for streaming via the fest’s online platform through January 29th.
View the winners’ list for 2023 below.
FESTIVAL FAVOURITE AWARD
Radical
Director: Christopher Zalla
U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize
A Thousand And One
Director: A.V. Rockwell
Audience Award
The Persian Version
Director: Maryam Keshavarz
Directing Award
Sing J. Lee
The Accidental Getaway Driver
Jury Award: Creative Vision
Magazine Dreams
Director: Elijah Bynum
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award
Maryam Keshavarz
The Persian Version
Special Jury Award: Acting
Lio Mehiel
Mutt
Jury Award: Ensemble
Theater Camp
Directors: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Grand Jury Prize
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Directors: Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson
Audience Award
Beyond Utopia
Director: Madeleine Gavin
Directing Award
Luke Lorentzen
A Still Small Voice
Special Jury Award: Clarity of Vision
The Stroll
Directors: Kristen Lovell, Zackary Drucker
Special Jury Award: Freedom of Expression
Bad Press
Directors: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Joe Peeler
Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award
Daniela I. Quiroz
Going Varsity in Mariachi
WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Audience Award
20 Days In Mariupol (Ukraine)
Director: Mstylav Chernov
Grand Jury Prize
The Eternal Memory (Chile)
Director: Maite Alberdi
Directing Award
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia/France/Iceland)
Director: Anna Hints
Special Jury Award: Verite Filmmaking
Against the Tide (India)
Director: Sarvnik Kaur
Special Jury Award: Creative Vision
Fantastic Machine (Sweden/Denmark)
Director: Axel Danielson
WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Audience Award
Shayda (Australia)
Director: Noora Niasari
Grand Jury Prize
Scrapper (UK)
Director: Charlotte Regan
Directing Award
Marija Kavtaradze
Slow (Lithuania/Spain/Sweden)
Special Jury Award: Creative Vision
Animalia (France/Morocco/Qatar)
Director: Sofia Alaoui
Special Jury Award: Best Performance
Rosa Marchant
When It Melts (Belgium/Netherlands)
Special Jury Award: Cinematography
Lílis Soares
Mami Wata (Nigeria)
NEXT
Audience Award
Kokomo City
Director: D. Smith
Innovator Award
Kokomo City
Director: D. Smith
SHORT FILMS AWARDS
Grand Jury Prize
When You Left Me On That Boulevard (U.S.A.)
Director: Kayla Abuda Galang
Jury Award: US Fiction
Rest Stop
Director: Crystal Kayiza
Jury Award: Directing, International
Valeria Hofmann
AliEN0089 (Chile)
Jury Award: Directing, US
Jarreau Carrillo
The Vacation
Jury Award: Animation
The Flying Sailor
Directors: Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis (Canada)
Jury Award: Nonfiction
Will You Look At Me (China)
Director: Shuli Huang
Jury Award: International Fiction
The Kidnapping Of The Bride (Germany)
Director: Sophia Mocorrea
