PARK CITY — “Minari,” “Boys State,” “Epicentro” and “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness” took home the four Grand Jury prizes at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival’s awards ceremony on Saturday night. Twenty-four other awards were given out in a variety of categories, and Tabitha Jackson was announced as the festival’s new director, replacing longtime festival director John Cooper.
“Minari,” a Korean drama set in rural Arkansas during the 1980s, won both the U.S. Dramatic prize and the Audience U.S. Dramatic award, and was among the most well-reviewed entries at this year’s festival, drawing comparisons to recent Asian dramas “Parasite” and “The Farewell.”
“Boys State” took home the festival’s U.S. Documentary prize, “Epicentro” won the World Cinema Documentary prize and “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness” won the World Cinema Dramatic prize. Audience-voted awards went to “Minari” (U.S. Dramatic), “Crip Camp” (U.S. Documentary), “The Reason I Jump” (World Cinema Documentary), “Identifying Features” (World Cinema Dramatic) and “I Carry You With Me” (NEXT).
The award-winners will be screened throughout the day on Sunday, Feb. 2 — the festival’s final day — at venues throughout Park City and Salt Lake City. Schedules and venue locations can be found at sundance.org.
John Cooper announced he was stepping down as festival director last June. New festival director Tabitha Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker who has been director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program for the past six years. In her new role, Jackson will work closely with Kim Yutani, the festival’s director of programming. Cooper will remain with the Sundance Institute as its emeritus director, in which he’ll oversee special projects, including the Institute’s 40th anniversary in 2021.
“It is exciting to be amplifying the voices and work of independent artists in these challenging and fast-changing times,” Jackson said in a news release. “My role, working with a team at the top of their game, will be to ensure that the festival remains as effective, vital and transformational in the years going forward as it has been in the past — and to make sure that we have fun doing it. I can’t wait to get started.”
The festival, which is typically a bidding frenzy among major movie studios and distributors, had a wealth of films with deals already in place before the festival started this year. The Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana,” which premiered at the festival’s opening night, was released on Netflix on Jan. 31. A24 secured the rights to “Minari” before the festival. “Downhill,” the highly anticipated drama-comedy starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, will be released nationally by Searchlight Pictures on Valentine’s Day.
Still, notable mid-festival acquisitions this year included the Andy Samberg comedy “Palm Springs,” which was bought by Neon and Hulu for a record-setting $17.5 million and 69 cents. (The festival’s previous record was $17.5 million even.) Hulu also acquired the horror-comedy “Bad Hair” for a reported $8 million. Other notable acquisitions included Amazon’s $12 million purchase of “Uncle Frank,” and an A24/Apple joint purchase of the documentary “Boys State” for a record-breaking $12 million.
Sundance 2020 brought some extremely famous folks to Park City and Salt Lake City this year, including Hillary Clinton, Taylor Swift and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Clinton was on hand for the premiere of “Hillary,” a four-part documentary series coming to Hulu on March 6. “(Filming the series) was a very emotional experience,” Clinton told the Sundance audience at the documentary premiere on Jan. 25.
Swift, meanwhile, appeared at the “Miss Americana” premiere on Jan. 23 at Park City’s Eccles Theatre. And Miranda was involved with two films at this year’s festival, “We Are Freestyle Love Supreme,” and “Siempre, Luis.”