Sundance Film Festival 2019: Bird bite takeways, fest awards and it’s a wrap…

As you may know acv was at Sundance (January 23-February 3) this year for the first time and there are a number of reports – mainly in the form of video from our time there. Below are the main news points of interest for us from the festival…

Deal for Gurinder Chadha and new film,‘Blinded by the light’ – $15 million (£12m) deal confirmed Warner Bros and New Line – global, not UK, France, Australia (eOne) and Japan (independent). We have an extensive interview with Chadha and will publish ahead of a UK release, expected to be in the summer.

Deal for Mindy Kaling (writer) and Nisha Ganatra (director) for ‘Late Night’ $13 million (£10m) deal with Amazon Studios – it will get a theatre release too and strategy may resemble that for ‘The Big Sick‘ which got £9m deal from Sundance last year.

London based Richie Mehta signed a deal with Netflix just before world premiere of ‘Delhi Crime Story’ now referred to as just ‘Delhi Crime‘. Seven part series will be available on platform from March 22. We have interviews with Mehta, lead actors Shefali Shah and Rasika Dugal who travelled to Sundance with Mehta, along with producers and other people who helped to make the films. Reports of second series already commissioned.

‘Hala’ – US coming of age drama with a Pakistani American girl at the centre of it and directed by Minhal Baig and executively produced by Jade Pinkett Smith (Will Smith’s wife) is snapped up by Apple Studios. No further details at the present time.

Lulu Wang the Chinese American director behind ‘The Farewell‘ which had its world premiere at Sundance. It chronicles the tale of a grandmother, dying of cancer, unknown to her, but returning to China from the US for a family wedding/reunion. The film has reportedly beeen sold to A24 for worldwide distribution rights. The film stars Awkwafina, a well-known US actor and rapper.

We will add all our videos with links below (later this week) but for now here is our main one covering the world premiere of Chadha’s ‘Blinded by the light’

For reviews of award-winning films, ‘Knock down the house’ and ‘Queen of hearts’ here along with other reviews from Sundance.

Awards

US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Award: Clemency, directed by Chinonye Chukwu
US Dramatic Audience Award: Brittany Runs a Marathon, directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo
US Dramatic Directing Award: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, directed by Joe Talbot
US Dramatic Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: Share, screenplay by Pippa Bianco
US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft: Honeyboy, directed by Alma Har’el
US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Colloboration: The Last Black Man in San Francisco,directed by Joe Talbot
US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Achievementin Acting: Rhianne Barreto, Share US Documentary Grand Jury Prize Award: One Child Nation, directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang
US Documentary Audience Award: Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears
US Documentary Directing Award: American Factory, directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
US Documentary Special Jury Award for Moral Urgency: Always in Season, directed by Jacqueline Olive
US Documentary Special Jury Award for an Emerging Filmmaker: Jawline, directed by Liza Mandelup
US Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing: Apollo 11, edited by Todd Douglas Miller
US Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Midnight Family, cinematographer Luke Lorentzen

World cinema dramatic competition winners
World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize: The Souvenir, directed by Joanna Hogg
World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award: Queen of Hearts, directed by May El-Toukhy
World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award: The Sharks, directed by Lucia Garibaldi
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Monos, directed by Alejandro Landes
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Originality: We Are Little Zombies, directed by Makoto Nagahisa
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting: Krystyna Janda, Dolce Fine Giornata

World cinema documentary competition winners
World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize: Honeyland, directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov
World Cinema Documentary Audience Award: Sea of Shadows, directed by Richard Ladkani
World Cinema Documentary Directing Award: Cold Case Hammarskjold, directed by Mads Brugger World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for No Borders: Midnight Traveler, directed by Hassan Fazzili
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact for Change: Honeyland, directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Honeyland, cinematographers Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma

Next winners
Audience Award: The Infiltrators, directed by Alex Rivera and Christina Ibarra
Innovator Award: The Infiltrators, directed by Alex Rivera and Christina Ibarra

For short film awards, please see http://www.sundance.org/now
(You can see video of awards ceremony there too).