Shorts Awards Announced
The winners of the Festival’s 2009 shorts program were announced on Tuesday night.
(Posted by Todd Luoto on Jan 21, 2009 at 09:01 pm.)
On Tuesday, Festivalgoers – many of whom had been celebrating Tuesday as they welcomed a new president into the White House – continued their festivities by reveling in short-form storytelling with the Festival’s Shorts Awards and Party held at the Legacy Lodge last night.
After watching 96 films in this year's program, short film jurors Gerardo Naranjo (director/writer/producer: Voy a explotar, Perro Negro, among others); Lou Taylor Pucci (actor, The Informers, Thumbsucker); and Sharon Swart (journalist, Variety) made a few hard choices, and came up with the 2009 winners.
The International Jury Prize was awarded to the Swedish film Lies by Jonas Odell. Odell's animated vision features three perfectly true stories about lying: a burglar who, when found out, claims to be a moonlighting accountant; the boy who finds himself lying and confessing to a crime he didn’t commit; and the woman whose whole life has been a chain of lies.
The U.S. Jury Prize was awarded to Short Term 12 by Destin Daniel Cretton. Short Term 12 is about Denim, the supervisor of a residential facility housing kids who are all affected by child abuse and neglect. As Denim is able to keep things under control at the facility, his personal life crumbles around him and he soon realizes he is no better than the kids he is trying to help.
Honorable mentions were given to the following films: The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5, Protect You + Me, Western Spaghetti, Jerrycan, Love You More, I Live in the Woods, Omelette, and Treevenge.
This has been a notable year for the Festival’s shorts program. An all-time high 96 films were chosen from a record-breaking 5,632 submissions. Tuesday night's event further proved that short films are a vital part of the Festival mission, and just as entertaining, thought-provoking, and rich as their feature counterparts.
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/news/article/shorts_awards_announced/
