2023 Sundance Film Festival Winners: ‘A Thousand And One’ Wins U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the festival’s first in-person competition since 2020, has revealed its award winners.

The big winners included Maryam Keshavarz‘s The Persian Version, which earned both the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, and A.V. Rockwell‘s A Thousand and One, which took home the Grand Jury Prize in the same category.

The Persian Version explores an Iranian-American family’s past as its patriarch gets a heart transplant while A Thousand and One centers around a mother who kidnaps her son from the foster care system in order to find a path toward redemption.

Other winners include Festival Favorite Radical directed by Christopher Zalla and Grand Jury Prize winner for U.S. Documentary, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

The festival has highlighted 101 different features and 64 shorts. These films were selected from a total of 15,856 submissions. Most of the films will be available for streaming through Sundance’s online platform through January 29.

Sundance also had several prominent sales, including the thriller Fair Play, starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, which went to Netflix for $20 million. John Carney‘s musical drama Flora and Son, starring Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sold to Apple for around the same amount.

Here is the complete list of winners:

GRAND JURY PRIZES

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic – “A Thousand and One” (dir. A.V. Rockwell)

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary – “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” (dir. Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson)

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic – “Scrapper” (dir. Charlotte Regan)

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary – “The Eternal Memory” (dir. Maite Alberdi)

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Audience Award: U.S. Documentary – “Beyond Utopia” (dir. Madeleine Gavin)

Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic – “The Persian Version” (dir. Maryam Keshavarz)

Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic – “Shayda” (dir. Noora Niasari)

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary – “20 Days in Mariupol” (dir. Mstyslav Chernov)

Audience Award: NEXT – “Kokomo City” (dir. D. Smith)

FESTIVAL FAVORITE AWARD

“Radical” (dir. Christopher Zalla)

JURY AWARDS FOR DIRECTING, SCREENWRITING & EDITING

Directing Award: U.S. Documentary – Luke Lorentzen, “A Still Small Voice”

Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic – Sing J. Lee, “The Accidental Getaway Driver”

Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary – Anna Hints, “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”

Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic – Marija Kavtaradze, “Slow”

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic – Maryam Keshavarz, “The Persian Version”

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: U.S. Documentary – Daniela I. Quiroz, “Going Varsity in Mariachi”

SHORT FILM AWARDS 

Short Film Grand Jury Prize – “When You Left Me on That Boulevard” (dir. Kayla Abuda Galang)

Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction – “Rest Stop” (dir. Crystal Kayiza)

Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction – “The Kidnapping of the Bride” (dir. Sophia Mocorrea)

Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction – “Will You Look at Me” (dir. Shuli Huang)

Short Film Jury Award: Animation – “The Flying Sailor” (dir. Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis)

SPECIAL JURY AWARDS

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision – “Fantastic Machine” (dir. Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck)

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Verite Filmmaking – “Against the Tide” (dir. Sarvnik Kaur)

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision – “Animalia” (dir. Sofia Alaoui)

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Cinematography – Lílis Soares, “Mami Wata”

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Performance – Rosa Marchant, “When It Melts”

Short Film Special Jury Award, International: Directing – “AliEN0089” (dir. Valeria Hofmann)

Short Film Special Jury Award, U.S: Directing – “The Vacation” (dir. Jarreau Carrillo)

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Clarity of Vision – “The Stroll” (dir. Kristen Lovell & Zackary Drucker)

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression – “Bad Press” (dir. Rebecca Landsberry-Baker & Joe Peeler)

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble – Cast of “Theater Camp”

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Creative Vision – Creative Team of “Magazine Dreams”

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Acting – Lio Mehiel, “Mutt”

NEXT Innovator Award presented by Adobe

“Kokomo City” (dir. D. Smith)