Park City • A young black man whose life ended too soon and Indian children whose lives are being cut short by AIDS were prominent in the big award winners Saturday night at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
Writer-director Ryan Coogler’s "Fruitvale" won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic competition. The film is a gritty portrayal of the last day in the life of Oscar Julius Grant III, a 22-year-old Oakland resident shot to death by a Bay Area Rapid Transit policeman on New Year’s Day 2009 — an incident that brought national focus to racial tensions in the San Francisco area.
In his acceptance speech, Coogler gave thanks to the Bay Area, "where Oscar Grant lived, breathed, slept, loved, and survived for 22 years."
Coogler also praised the Sundance Institute, which nurtured the film through its Filmmakers Lab programs and at the festival. He singled out the other directors he met at the labs and this week in Park City.
"We formed crazy relationships through those labs, crazy relationships at this festival," Coogler said. "I hope to keep in touch with those directors for the rest of my life."
"Blood Brother," director Steve Hoover’s intimate look at his friend Rocky Braat’s volunteer work in an Indian orphanage for HIV-infected children, also made the rare double-shot — taking both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Documentary competition.
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Published May 20, 2013 01:06:03PM
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Published May 20, 2013 09:27:33AM
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Published May 19, 2013 07:23:29PM
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"It is so encouraging for the kids," Braat said from the podium. "Their lives are so challenging. They die and no one remembers their names."
Hoover also said proceeds from the film will go to help the kids Braat works with in India. "I can’t wait to see the difference we can make in the world doing this," Hoover said.
Grand Jury Prize winners in the World Cinema categories were: The South Korean drama "Jiseul," about island residents forced to relocate; and the Cambodian-made documentary "A River Changes Course," which shows the lives of peasants dealing with overfishing, deforestation and the global economy.
The World Cinema Audience Awards went to the Filipino urban drama "Metro Manila" and the documentary "The Square," which followed the lives of protesters in Egypt’s "Arab Spring" protests.
The Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary category went to Zachary Heinzerling for "Cutie and the Boxer," a fond portrait of "action painter" Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko, an artist coming into her own.
Comedies directed by women won big at Saturday’s awards ceremony. Jill Soloway won the U.S. Dramatic directing prize for her sexually charged suburban comedy "Afternoon Delight." And director-writer-star Lake Bell won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for "In a World…," a sharp comedy about a woman voice-over artist trying to break through in a male-dominated business.
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