In addition to the competition, juried and audience prizes conferred during the festival, several Sundance co-sponsored special-category prizes are also awarded.
During a Jan. 26 invitation-only reception at the Sundance House in Park City, the $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan Prize was awarded to writer-director Alex Rivera for his debut feature,
Sleep Dealer. The film is described in festival programming notes as a “fascinating and prescient work of science fiction.”
The prize, provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes a feature film depicting science or technology as a thematic focus, or a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. Previous recipients have included Mark Decena’s
Dopamine,
Primer by Shane Carruth and Chen Shi-zheng’s
Dark Matter.
A committee of five film and science professionals selected
Sleep Dealer for “its visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy rife with fundamental challenges and opportunities, and for its powerful and original storytelling and direction.”
Rivera had previously workshopped the film at the 2000 and 2001 Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Labs, and is a prior recipient of the Sundance/NHK award and an Annenberg Feature Film Fellowship. Acknowledging the ongoing support of Institute programs, Rivera noted that “Sundance has been at the side of this project for seven years.”
Sleep Dealer debuted in the Dramatic Competition at this year’s festival.
The day before, the Sundance Institute and NHK, Japan’s largest broadcaster, presented the winners of the 2008 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards, selected from a group of 12 finalists.
The four winners were Alejandro Fernandez Almendras (Chile) for
Huacho, Braden King (USA) with
Here, Radu Jude (Romania) --
The Happiest Girl in the World -- and Aiko Nagatsu (Japan) for
Apoptosis. Nagatsu noted that “there are not any awards like this in Japan, so I’m inspired very much.”
The annual award was created in 1996 to honor visionary directors from four global regions (Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Japan) and support the development and production of their winning narrative feature scripts.
Each director receives a $10,000 cash award and a guarantee from NHK to purchase the Japanese television broadcast rights for their projects, as well as ongoing staff support from the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program with seeking financing and distribution of their films.
Labels: Sundance
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posted by Justin Lowe @ 1/26/2008 07:37:00 PM
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