The narrative feature “Minari” and the documentary “Boys State” have won the top prizes from the U.S. jury at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, which announced its winners at an awards ceremony on Saturday night. “Minari,” director Lee Isaac Chung’s coming-of-age story about a Korean-American boy, also won the festival’s audience award.
The only other films to win more than one award were “Identifying Features” (“Sin Senas Particulares”), Fernanda Valadez’s drama about a Mexican woman searching for a son who disappeared while attempting to cross the border; and “I Carry You With Me,” in which documentary director Heidi Ewing makes her narrative feature debut about an aspiring Mexican chef whose life changes when his sexuality becomes public. “Identifying Features” won the audience award in the World Cinema Dramatic section and a jury award for its screenplay, while “I Carry You With Me” won the audience award in the NEXT section and the NEXT Innovator Prize.
In the World Cinema section, the winners were the documentary “Epicentro” and the narrative feature “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness.”
Other audience award winners included “Crip Camp” and “The Reason I Jump.”
Jury awards included directing prizes for Garrett Bradley (“Time”), Radha Blank (“The 40-Year-Old Version”), Iryna Tsilyk (“The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”) and Maïmouna Doucouré (“Cuties”).
Special jury awards were given to “Shirley” director Josephine Decker for auteur filmmaking, to “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” director Eliza Hittman for neo-realism and to the ensemble cast of “Charm City Kings.”
In short-film awards that were handed out in previous ceremonies, Sofia Alaoui’s “So What If the Goats Die” won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, while other shorts winners included Daria Kascheeva’s “Daughter,” a current Oscar nominee in the Best Animated Short category.
This year’s Sundance juries included Rodrigo Garcia, Ethan Hawke, Dee Rees, Isabella Rossellini, Wash Westmoreland, Kimberly Reed, Rachel Rosen, Courtney Sexton, E. Chai Vasarhelyi, Noland Walker, Haifaa Al Mansour, Wagner Moura, Alba Rohrwacher, Eric Hynes, Rima Mismar, Nanfu Wang and Gregg Araki.
The complete list of winners:
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, “Boys State”
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: Lee Isaac Chung, “Minari”
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary: Hubert Sauper, “Epicentro”
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: Massoud Bakhshi, “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness”
Audience Award: U.S. Documentary: Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, “Crip Camp”
Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic: Lee Isaac Chung, “Minari”
Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary: Jerry Rothwell, “The Reason I Jump”
Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic: Fernanda Valadez, “Identifying Features” (“Sin Señas Particulares”)
Audience Award: NEXT: Heidi Ewing, “I Carry You With Me”
Directing Award: U.S. Documentary: Garrett Bradley, “Time”
Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic: Radha Blank, “The 40-Year-Old Version”
Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary: Iryna Tsilyk, “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”
Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic: Maïmouna Doucouré, “Cuties”
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic: Edson Oda, “Nine Days”
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast: the cast of “Charm City Kings”
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Auteur Filmmaking: Josephine Decker, “Shirley”
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Neo-Realism: Eliza Hittman, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing: Tyler H. Walk, “Welcome to Chechnya”
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling: Kirsten Johnson, “Dick Johnson Is Dead”
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker: Arthur Jones, “Feels Good Man”
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres, “The Fight”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting: Ben Whishaw, “Surge”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Visionary Filmmaking: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, “This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection”
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay: Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero, “Identifying Features” (“Sin Señas Particulares”)
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling: Benjamin Ree, “The Painter and the Thief ”
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Mircea Topoleanu and Radu Ciorniciuc, “Acasa, My Home”
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing: Mila Aung-Thwin, Sam Soko, and Ryan Mullins, “Softie”
NEXT Innovator Prize: Heidi Ewing, “I Carry You With Me”
Short Film Grand Jury Prize: “So What If The Goats Die”
Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction: “Ship: A Visual Poem”
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction: “The Devil’s Harmony”
Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction: “John Was Trying to Contact Aliens”
Short Film Jury Award: Animation: “Daughter”
Short Film Special Jury Award for Acting: “Exam”
Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing: “Valerio’s Day Out”
2020 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, presented to an outstanding feature film about science or technology: “Tesla”
Sundance Institute | Amazon Studios Producers Award for Documentary Features: Diane Becker and Melanie Miller, “Whirlybird”
Sundance Institute | Amazon Studios Producers Award for Narrative Features: Huriyyah Muhammad, “Farewell Amor”
Sundance Institute | Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Documentary: Carla Gutierez
Sundance Institute | Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Narrative: Affonso Gonçalves.
Sundance Institute | NHK Award: Kirsten Tan, “Higher”