Sundance Announces Award Winners for 2022 (Updating Live)

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival is announcing the winners for the Best of the Fest in a virtual awards ceremony Friday, capping off the second year in a row in which the festival was forced to go virtual amid the pandemic.

Over 80 feature films played at this year’s Sundance, as well as six indie episodic projects, 15 New Frontier projects and 59 short films that drew from the festival’s largest submission pool ever.

Last year both “CODA” and “Summer of Soul” swept the top prizes at Sundance, winning both the Grand Jury Prizes in their respective categories and the audience awards. It was only the third time that a dramatic film and a documentary have won the top audience and jury awards in the same year. And it also was the first time that two films won the top three awards in their categories when “CODA” and “Hive” managed to win the Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award and the Directing Award.

“This year’s entire program has proven that no matter the context, independent storytelling remains a pivotal tool in expanding critical dialogues, and these stories will and must be shared,” Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente said upon introducing the awards ceremony.

“This year’s festival expressed a powerful convergence; we were present, together, as a community connected through the work. And it is work that has already changed those who experienced it,” festival director Tabitha Jackson added.

This year’s jurors were: Chelsea Barnard, Marielle Heller, and Payman Maadi for U.S. Dramatic Competition; Garrett Bradley, Joan Churchill, and Peter Nicks for U.S. Documentary Competition; Andrew Haigh, Mohamed Hefzy, and La Frances Hui for World Cinema Dramatic Competition;and Emilie Bujès, Patrick Gaspard, and Dawn Porter for World Cinema Documentary Competition. Joey Soloway was the juror for the NEXT competition section. Penelope Bartlett, Kevin Jerome Everson, and Blackhorse Lowe juried the Short Film Program Competition.

This year’s festival has seen some healthy sales for a variety of titles, including Apple’s reported $15 million acquisition of Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” and other 7-figure deals for the documentary “Fire of Love,” Riley Stearns’ “Dual” and the Rebecca Hall thriller “Resurrection,” the Bill Nighy drama “Living” and the Emma Thompson comedy “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.”

Below is the full list of award winners, which we’ll update live as they come in. Links for certain awards include video introductions and statements from jurors and acceptance speeches via Sundance’s Twitter.

U.S. Grand Jury Prize – Dramatic:
U.S. Grand Jury Prize – Documentary:
Directing Award – U.S. Dramatic:
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award:
Directing Award – U.S. Documentary:
Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award – U.S. Documentary:
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble:
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award, Best Actor:
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Nonfiction Experimentation:
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmakers:
Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic:
Audience Award for U.S. Documentary:
Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic:
Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary:
World Cinematic Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic: “Utama” Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Directing Award: World Cinematic Dramatic:
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Creative Vision:
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Acting:
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary:
Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary:
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Impact for Change:
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Verité Filmmaking:
The NEXT Innovator Award: “Framing Agnes,” Chase Joynt director
The NEXT Audience Award:
Short Film Grand Jury Prize: “The Headhunter’s Daughter”
Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction: Walter Thompson-Hernández, “If I Go Will They Miss Me”
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction: Danai Bdeir, “Warsha”
Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction: Samir Karahoda, “Displaced”
Short Film Special Jury Award: Ensemble Cast: Zélia Duncan, Bruna Linzmeyer, Camila Rocha, Clarissa Ribeiro, and Lorre Motta for “A wild patience has taken me here”
Short Film Special Jury Award: Screenwriting: Sara Driver, “Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver”
Short Film Special Jury Award: Animation: Joe Hsieh, “Night Bus”
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize: “After Yang,” The filmmakers received a $20,000 cash award from Sundance Institute with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Fiction: Dody Dorn
Sundance Institute/Adobe Mentorship Award for Editing Nonfiction: Toby Shimin
Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Producers Award Fiction: Amanda Marshall, “God’s Country”
Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Producers Award Nonfiction: Su Kim, “Free Chol Soo Lee” (U.S. Documentary Competition).
Sundance Institute NHK Award: “The President’s Cake”
Gayle Stevens Volunteer Award: Brenda “BJ” Berliner

More to come…