Sundance Film Festival Awards: ‘In The Summers’, ‘Dìdi’, ‘Daughters’ Top Winners List

By Anthony D'Alessandro, Patrick Hipes

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony revealed winners Friday honoring the best of this year’s lineup in Park City.

The U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize went to Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers, about two sisters who navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, NM. Lacorazza also won a special jury prize for directing.

See the full list of winners below.

Other Grand Jury winners unveiled today in the ceremony at the Ray Theatre included Porcelain War in the U.S. Documentary competition, A New Kind of Wilderness in the World Cinema Documentary competition, and Sujo in the World Cinema Dramatic competition.

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s documentary Daughters received the Festival Favorite Award, which Park City audiences select across all new feature films presented at the festival, as well as the Audience Award for the U.S. Documentary competition. It follows four young girls preparing for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique program in a Washington, D.C., jail.

Other Audience Awards, meanwhile, went to Dìdi (弟弟) in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Girls Will Be Girls in the World Cinema Dramatic competition and Ibelin in the World Cinema Documentary competition. Kneecap won the Audience Award for the Next Section.

Dìdi, written and directed by Sean Wang, is set in 2008 during the last month of summer before high school begins, when an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom. It also won an ensemble prize for its cast that includes Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen and Chang Li Hua.

Also today, Jesse Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for A Real Pain, the pic he also directed and stars in with Kieran Culkin. Searchlight acquired the pic on the ground here in a $10 million pact that kicked off this year’s dealmaking.

This year’s juries were comprised of Debra Granik, Adrian Tomine, and Lena Waithe (U.S. Dramatic Competition); Shane Boris, Nicole Newnham and Rudy Valdez (U.S. Documentary Competition); Anita Gou, Mira Nair and Rui Poças (World Cinema Dramatic Competition); Mandy Chang, Monica Hellström and Shaunak Sen (World Cinema Documentary Competition) and Zal Batmanglij (Next).

Earlier in the week, the festival handed out its Alfred P, Sloan Science-In-Film Initiative’s feature film prize to Love Me, the U.S. Dramatic Competition pic written and directed by Sam and Andy Zuchero. Set in a post-human world, it centers on a love story between two AI-driven objects — an ocean buoy and a space satellite — voiced by Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun.

On Wednesday, the festival revealed its short film honorees, with the Grand Jury Prize going to Alex Lora Cercos’ The Masterpiece from Spain. The shorts lineup comprising 53 films was judged by a jury featuring Christina Oh, Danny Pudi and Charlotte Regan.

Last year, the top winners included The Persian Version, which claimed the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in U.S. Dramatic Competition, and A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One which took the Grand Jury Prize in the same section. Other winners included Radical, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, Beyond Utopia and Kokomo City.

See the full list of 2024 winners below.

Sundance Film Festival 2024 winners

Grand Jury Prizes

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
In the Summers
dir: Alessandra Lacorazza

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
Porcelain War
dir. Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev,

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Sujo
dir. Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
A New Kind of Wilderness
dir. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award
A Real Pain
Writer: Jesse Eisenberg

NEXT Innovator Award
Little Death
dir. Jack Begert

Festival Favorite Award
Daughters
dir. Angela Patton, Natalie Rae

Audience Award: U.S. Documentary
Daughters
dir. Angela Patton, Natalie Rae

Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic
Didi
dir. Sean Wang

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary
Ibelin
dir. Director: Benjamin Ree

Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic
Girls Will Be Girls
dir. Shuchi Talati

Audience Award: NEXT
Kneecap
dir. Rich Peppiatt

Special Jury Awards

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Craft
Nocturnes
Dir. Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
dir. Johan Grimonprez

Special Jury Award for NEXT presented by Adobe
Desire Lines
dir. Jules Rosskam

JURY AWARDS FOR DIRECTING, SCREENWRITING & EDITING

Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary
Ibelin
dir. Benjamin Ree

Directing Award: U.S. Documentary
Sugarcane
dir. Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic
In the Summers
dir: Alessandra Lacorazza

Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic
In the Land of Brothers
dir. Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: U.S. Documentary
Frida
dir. Carla Gutiérrez

Special Jury Awards

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Original Music
Handling the Undead
Composer: Peter Raeburn

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting
Girls Will Be Girls
Preeti Panigrahi

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change
Union
dir. Stephen Maing, Brett Story

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance
Nico Parker
Suncoast

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble
Didi

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Sound
Gaucho Gaucho
dir. Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

Short Films

Grand Jury Prize
The Masterpiece (Spain)
Dir: Alex Lora Cercos

Jury Award: U.S. Fiction
Say Hi After You Die (U.S.)
Dir: Kate Jean Hollowell

Jury Award: International Fiction
The Stag (Taiwan)
Dir: An Chu

Jury Award: Nonfiction
Bob’s Funeral (U.S.)
Dir: Jack Dunphy

Jury Award: Animation
Bug Diner (U.S.)
Dir: Phoebe Jane Hart

Special Jury Prize for Directing
The Looming (U.S.)
Dir: Masha Ko

Pisko the Crab Child is in Love (Japan)
Dir: Makoto Nagahisa

Alfred P. Sloan Science-In-Film Initiative

Feature Film Award
Love Me (U.S.)
Dir: Sam and Andy Zuchero