So our Sundance Previews gave you a look at several of the films being shown at the Festival this year, but we had not brought you those that finished at the top, so without further ado, let’s take a peek.
First up is Forty Shades of Blue, the film that took top dramatic honors at the Festival, a film directed by Ira Sachs and described as a contemporary drama with archetypal overtones and profound emotion.
The film is the story of Laura, a Russian woman living in Memphis with Alan, a legendary music producer twice her age. Though she looks the part, Laura is no typical trophy wife. Vigilantly guarded, she sublimates her own desires out of a stoic sense of duty and a reluctance to impose on Alan’s generosity. When Alan’s estranged adult son Michael comes for a visit, an intuitive bond develops between them that destabilizes her tightly ordered world. Michael becomes a mirror that allows her to see herself and new possibilities.
The film stars Rip Torn, Dina Korzun, Darren Burrows, Paprika Steen and Red West and we have a look at six images from the film so click here to enjoy those.
Next is the documentary that took the Grand Jury Prize, Why We Fight, helmed by Eugene Jarecki, a film that examines the chronically militant stance of the United States over the last half century featuring the likes of Graydon Carter, John S.D. Eisenhower, Chalmers Johnson, William Kristol, John McCain, Richard Perle and Gore Vidal.
Sundance’s description of the film reads like this:
He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning “military industrial complex,” foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.
Deploying the general’s farewell address as his strategic ground zero, Eugene Jarecki launches a full-frontal autopsy of how the will of a people has become an accessory to the Pentagon. Surveying the scorched landscape of a half-century’s military misadventures and misguided missions, Jarecki asks how–and tells why–a nation ostensibly of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.
To check out three stills from the film click here.
Finally, the Audience Award goes to the John Singleton produced film Hustle & Flow, a dramatic musical event starring the likes of Terence Howard, D.J. Qualls, Ludacris, Taryn Manning, Anthony Anderson and Isaac Hayes.
The film follows Djay, a pimp suffering a midlife crisis and although nominally successful, he yearns to record his flow and become a respected rapper. Galvanized by a gospel song, he sets his dream in motion–recruiting his motley crew and building a studio in his home. And though he succeeds in putting his rap, “It’s Hard for a Pimp,” onto tape, the barriers to fame and fortune are many, and getting there becomes an elusive goal.
We have nine images from the film, so to check those out click here.
For the full list of winners check out the PDF at the official Sundance site here. Also, if you are up to it, we have seven stills from Hard Candy, the dramatic thriller picked up by Lions Gate at the festival, click here to check those out. The film stars Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh and Jennifer Holmes.
