User:Shatche1/sandbox

1981: US Film and Video Festival[edit][edit]
In 1981, the festival moved to Park City, Utah, and changed the dates from September to January. The move from late summer to midwinter was done by the executive director Susan Barrell with the cooperation of Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, who suggested that running a film festival in a ski resort during winter would draw more attention from Hollywood. It was called the US Film and Video Festival.

Growth of the festival[edit]
The festival has changed over the decades from a low-profile venue for small-budget, independent creators from outside the Hollywood system to a media extravaganza for Hollywood celebrity actors, paparazzi, and luxury lounges set up by companies not affiliated with Sundance. Festival organizers have tried curbing these activities in recent years, beginning in 2007 with their ongoing Focus On Film campaign.

The 2009 film Official Rejection documented the experience of small filmmakers trying to get into various festivals in the late 2000s, including Sundance. The film contained several arguments that Sundance had become dominated by large studios and sponsoring corporations. A contrast was made between the 1990s, in which non-famous filmmakers with tiny budget films could get distribution deals from studios like Miramax Films or New Line Cinema, (like Kevin Smith's Clerks), and the 2000s, when major stars with multimillion-dollar films (like The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher) dominated the festival. Kevin Smith doubted that Clerks, if made in the late 2000s, would be accepted to Sundance.

Numerous small festivals sprung up around Sundance in the Park City area, including Slamdance, Nodance, Slumdance, It-dance, X-Dance, Lapdance, Tromadance, The Park City Film Music Festival, etc., though all except[citation needed] Slamdance are no longer held.

Included in the Sundance changes made in 2010, a new programming category titled "NEXT" (often denoted simply by the characters "<=>", which mean "less is more") was introduced to showcase innovative films that are able to transcend the confines of an independent budget. Another recent addition was the Sundance Film Festival USA program, in which eight of the festival's films are shown in eight different theaters around the United States.

The premiere of, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's 2020 documentary film: Miss Americana, at the opening night of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and Swift's pre-announced appearance at the festival, caused a great surge in the number of attendees, traction and media coverage, which was new to the normally reserved festival.

Sundance Award Ceremony and Top 2 Best Ranked & Highest award winners from (2016- 2019)
At the Sundance Film Festival an award ceremony is held to present awards to independent directors whose films were chosen by a diverse group of film experts as the best. Film award prize winnings are based on regular length films with a 50 min+ airing time and short films with less than 50min. airing time including credits. The award categories at the ceremony includes: the U.S. Grand Jury Prize is the ranking award which recognizes a film in both the U.S. Dramatic and U.S. Documentary Competitions as the best from the independent film community, the World Cinema Grand Jury which is the highest award for international films recognizes the best dramatic and documentary work in international independent filmmaking that year, The Directing Award honors directors in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and World Cinema Documentary Competition, the Special Jury Awards Jurors give a number of Special Jury Awards recognizing excellence in the craft of filmmaking. Inspired by the Art of Film Weekend, these prizes are chosen by their respective juries as they deem appropriate. The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award will be given to a U.S. Dramatic film for excellence in screenwriting, the Audience Awards are chosen by Festivalgoers themselves through ballots cast at the theaters after screenings. Audience Awards are presented to films in the Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition. Short film awards are presented to filmmakers for there outstanding vision and creativity. The short film awards include: the Short Film Grand Jury Prize ,Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction ,Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction ,Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction, Short Film Jury Award: Animation, Short Film Special Jury Award for Acting ,and the Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing. Six juries of film and culture leaders screen all films in their respective sections and jointly decide which standout artistic and story elements to recognize with prizes. The top two best ranking and highest awards are the U.S. Grand Jury Prize( dramatic and documentary) and the World Cinema Grand Jury prize (dramatic and documentary) from 2016-2019.

Best ranking award 2016: U.S. Grand Jury Prize for dramatic & documentary
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg for,Weiner (film) — .With unrestricted access to Anthony Weiner's New York City mayoral campaign, this film reveals the human story behind the scenes of a high-profile political scandal as it unfolds, and offers an unfiltered look at how much today's politics is driven by an appetite for spectacle.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Nate Parker, for The Birth of a Nation (2016 film) — Set against the antebellum South, this story follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. After witnessing countless atrocities against fellow slaves, Nat devises a plan to lead his people to freedom.

Best highest Award 2016 : World Cinema Grand Jury for dramatic & documentary
The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, for Sonita — If 18-year-old Sonita had a say, Michael Jackson and Rihanna would be her parents and she'd be a rapper who tells the story of Afghan women and their fate as child brides. She finds out that her family plans to sell her to an unknown husband for $9,000.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Elite Zexer, for Sand Storm — When their entire lives are shattered, two Bedouin women struggle to change the unchangeable rules, each in her own individual way.

Best ranking award 2017: U.S. Grand Jury Prize for dramatic & documentary
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini, for Dina — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Macon Blair, for I don't feel at home in this world anymore. — When a depressed woman is burglarized, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves, alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.

Best highest Award 2017 : World Cinema Grand Jury for dramatic & documentary
The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Feras Fayyad, for Last Men in Aleppo  After five years of war in Syria, Aleppo’s remaining residents prepare themselves for a siege. Khalid, Subhi and Mahmoud, founding members of The White Helmets, have— remained in the city to help their fellow citizens—and experience daily life, death, struggle and triumph in a city under fire.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Tarik Saleh, for The Nile Hilton Incident   — In Cairo, weeks before the 2011 revolution, Police Detective Noredin is working in the infamous Kasr el-Nil Police Station when he is handed the case of a murdered singer. He soon realizes that the investigation concerns the power elite, close to the President’s inner circle.

Best ranking award 2018: U.S. Grand Jury Prize for dramatic & documentary
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Derek Doneen, for The Price of Free (Kailash). — As a young man, Kailash Satyarthi promised himself that he would end child slavery in his lifetime. In the decades since, he has rescued more than eighty thousand children and built a global movement. This intimate and suspenseful film follows one man's journey to do what many believed was impossible.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Desiree Akhavan, for The Miseducation of Cameron Post .— 1993: after being caught having sex with the prom queen, a girl is forced into a gay conversion therapy center. Based on Emily Danforth's acclaimed and controversial coming-of-age novel.

Best highest Award 2018: World Cinema Grand Jury for dramatic & documentary
The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Talal Derki, for Of Fathers and Sons — Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Tolga Karaçelik, for Butterflies / Turkey — In the Turkish village of Hasanlar, three siblings who neither know each other nor anything about their late father, wait to bury his body. As they start to find out more about their father and about each other, they also start to know more about themselves.

Best ranking award 2019: U.S. Grand Jury Prize for dramatic & documentary
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, for One Child Nation. — After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China’s one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Chinonye Chukwu, for Clemency. — Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

Best highest Award 2019 : World Cinema Grand Jury for dramatic & documentary
The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary


 * Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, for Honeyland. — When nomadic beekeepers break Honeyland's basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees), the last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and restore natural balance.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic


 * Joanna Hogg, for The Souvenir. — A shy film student begins finding her voice as an artist while navigating a turbulent courtship with a charismatic but untrustworthy man. She defies her protective mother and concerned friends as she slips deeper and deeper into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship which comes dangerously close to destroying her dreams.