Turkish film wins award at Sundance

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

The team of ‘Can’ that won the Special Jury Award poses at the festival.

Turkish director Raşit Çelikezer has been presented with the special jury award at the 12th Sundance Film Festival for his film “Can.”

The film, starring Selen Uçer and Serdar Orçin, previously won the Behlül Dal Jury Special Prize at the Golden Orange Film Festival organized in the southern province of Antalya.

“Can” won the prize along with the documentaries “Love Free or Die” by Macky Alston, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” by Alison Klayman and “Searching for Sugarman” by Malik Bendjelloul.

Nearly 120 feature films, including 58 in competition, were presented this year at Sundance. The festival was founded by actor and director Robert Redford as a counterweight to big-ticket Hollywood events and is held in the U.S. state of Utah. The awards were given Jan. 28.

The grand prix for best American fiction went to “Beasts of the Southern Wild” directed by Benh Zeitlin. The film recounts the fictional journey of a 6-year-old girl to some of the remote corners of the world, and is full of imaginary animals, Agence France-Presse reported.

Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In,” which tells the story of the United States’ 40-year war on drugs, won in the best American documentary category.

The grand prix for best foreign fiction movie was awarded to “Violeta Has Gone to Heaven” by Chilean director Andres Wood, a biopic on the life of singer Violeta Parra, a Chilean music icon who died in 1967 after shooting herself in the head.

The grand prix for best foreign documentary went to “The Law in These Parts” directed by Israel’s Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, which uses judges’ testimonies to question the merits of the emergency laws introduced by Israel on occupied Palestinian territories in 1967.