January
26
Sundance: Sony Pictures Classics Acquires The Wackness, Which Wins Drama Audience Award
Sony Pictures Classics closed a deal Saturday to buy North American rights to Jonathan Levine's The Wackness for less than $2 million. The coming-of-age story about a teenage drug dealer (Josh Peck) who sells dope to his shrink (Ben Kingsley) in exchange for psychological advice was in the Sundance dramatic competition. CAA sold the film, which as expected won the dramatic audience award at Sundance Saturday night. SPE has already acquired fest pics Frozen River and the Duplass brothers' Baghead. SPC won over the filmmakers and nabbed the pic for less than others, including Weinstein Co, Netflix and Samuel Goldwyn Co., had offered.
Some folks seem to have an issue with SPC distributing Wackness:
Film School Rejects
Slashfilm
First Showing
Todd McCarthy reports on the Sundance Awards. Here's the LAT's Ken Turan. Mike Jones lists the Winners on the jump:
Quentin Tarrantino, after screaming "Cinema, BABY! This film rocks my ass!" gives the Grand Jury Prize for Drama to "Frozen River", directed by Courtney Hunt (pictured with actress Melissa Leo).The Grand Jury Prize for Documentary goes to "Trouble the Water," directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, won the Grand Prize for Docs.
The World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary was given to "Man on Wire."
"King of Ping Pong," directed by Jens Jonsson, won the World Cinema Jury Prize for Drama.
The Audience Award for Documentary went to "Fields Of Fuel," directed by Josh Tickell.
"The Wackness," directed by Jonathan Levine, wins the Audience Award for Drama.
"Man on Wire"/United Kingdom, directed by James Marsh, gets the World Cinema Audience Award for Documentary.
The World Cinema Audience Award for Drama goes to "Captain Abu Raed," by director Amin Matalqa.
The Directing Award for Documentary goes to Nanette Burstein for "American Teen."
"Ballast's" Lance Hammer wins the Directing Award for Drama.
The World Cinema Directing Award for Documentary goes to Nino Kirtadze, director of "Durakovo: Village Of Fools."
"Mermaid's" Anna Melikyan wins the World Cinema Directing Award.
The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award goes to Alex Rivera (pictured with Sundance's Geoff Gilmore) and David Riker for "Sleep Dealer."
The World Cinema Screenwriting Award goes to Samuel Benchetrit for "I Always Wanted To Be A Gangster".
Joe Bini, editor of "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" wins the Documentary Editing Award
Irena Dol, editor of "The Art Star And The Sudanese Twins" wins the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award.
The Excellence in Cinematography Award for Documentary goes to Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring for "Patti Smith: Dream Of Life."
D.P. Lol Crawley of "Ballast" wins the Excellence in Cinematography Award for drama.
The World Cinema Cinematography Award for Documentary goes to al Massad for "Recycle".
The World Cinema Cinematography Award for Drama goes to Askild Vik Edvardsen for "King of Ping Pong."
A World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Dramatic goes to Ernesto Contreras, director of "Blue Eyelids".
A Special Jury Prize for Documentary goes to Lisa F. Jackson, director of "Greatest Silence: Rape In The Congo."
A Special Jury Prize for drama goes to director Chusy Haney-Jardine for "Anywhere, USA"
A Special Jury Prize for Drama by an Ensemble Cast goes to the cast of "Choke." - Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brad Henke.
The Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking goes to "My Olympic Summer," directed by Daniel Robin, and "Sikumi" directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean.
The International Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking goes to "Soft", directed by Simon Ellis.
Honorable Mentions in Short Filmmaking went to: "Aquarium," directed by Rob Meyer; "August 15th," directed by Xuan Jiang; "La Corona", directed by Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega; "Oiran Lyrics," directed by Ryosuke Ogawa; "Spider," directed by Nash Edgerton; "Suspension," directed by Nicolas Provost, and "W.", directed by The Vikings.
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I discovered this blog today as part of my research to put the brand new information about movies on my blog.
About the Sundance Film Festival, it's just a shame that here in Brazil it takes a long time to these movies to be screened.
Posted by: Felipe Salomão Banci | January 27, 2008 at 01:31 PM