‘Atropia' and ‘Twinless’ win top prizes at Sundance Film Festival

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The war satire "Atropia," about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival's U.S. dramatic competition, while the Dylan O'Brien movie "Twinless" got the coveted audience award. Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah.

Other grand jury winners included the documentaries "Seeds," about farmers in rural Georgia and "Cutting Through the Rocks," about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama "Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)," about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition.

“It’s for my dad,” said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking.

Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” about the bromance between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the U.S. dramatic category. O’Brien also won a special jury award for his acting.

The U.S. documentary audience award went to “André is an Idiot,” a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were “Prime Minister,” about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and “DJ Ahmet,” a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia.

Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, "2000 Meters to Andriivka," a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline.

“Here’s to all documentary directors who are risking their lives in Ukraine trying to tell the stories of people who protect the land that I call home,” Chernov said onstage.

Others singled out for directing include Geeta Gandbhir for “The Perfect Neighbor,” a documentary about a murder in Florida told through the use of police body camera footage, and Rashad Frett for “Ricky,” a drama about life post-incarceration.

The world cinema documentary jury also gave special prizes to “Coexistence, My Ass!” about a comedian who creates a one-woman show about the struggle for equality in Israel and Palestine, and “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” in which a Russian teacher goes undercover to expose what’s happening in his school during the invasion of Ukraine.

“Our programming team is so thrilled to have introduced these moving and impactful works to our audiences this Festival, and we look forward to following the journeys of each of these talented artists and their projects,” said festival programming director Kim Yutani.

The Sundance Film Festival runs through Sunday.

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