‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ sweeps Sundance Awards

LOS ANGELES – Agence France-Presse

RJ Cyler, left, and Thomas Mann, in a scene from the film, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. AP Photo

“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” a moving drama about a teenager who befriends a classmate with cancer, won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 31.

Sundance winners regularly go on to critical and awards success at Hollywood’s main prize-giving ceremonies. Last year’s top winner, “Whiplash,” is nominated for best picture at this year’s Oscars.

The U.S. documentary award meanwhile went to “The Wolfpack,” while in the non-U.S. categories the main prizes went to a Scottish filmmaker and a movie about Ukraine’s ongoing struggle in the shadow of its former Soviet masters.

“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon took the Grand Jury Prize for a U.S. drama at the end of a two-hour awards ceremony in the Utah mountain resort Park City.

It also took the U.S. drama audience prize -- the third year in row that the top U.S. film has won both Grand Jury and audience awards, following “Whiplash” last year and “Fruitvale Station” in 2013.

The best director for U.S. drama was named as Robert Eggers for his horror movie “The Witch.”

The win for “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” came against what was considered strong competition this year from other entries that stirred considerable buzz at Sundance, including “The Witch” and the coming-of-age hip hop drama “Dope.”

Among U.S. documentaries, “The Wolfpack” by Crystal Moselle took the Grand Jury Prize, while best director went to Matthew Heineman for “Cartel Land” about drug wars in Mexico.

In the world cinema categories, the Grand Jury Prize for a drama went to “Slow West” by Scottish filmmaker John Maclean, which follows a teenager on a journey across 19th century frontier America in search of the woman he loves.

“Thanks to dad for taking me to see Westerns when I was a wee boy,” he said in a message to the festival. The movie co-stars Michael Fassbender.

The world documentary Grand Jury Prize was given to “The Russian Woodpecker,” which takes a stab at Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a story about the revolution in Ukraine and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

“I don’t think we can stop Russia with bombs, but I think with a little bit of art and truth maybe we can make some progress,” said the movie’s American director Chad Gracia.

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival opened on Jan. 22 and officially ended yesterday.