The SXSW Film Festival Awards were handed out last night. I’d love to tell you how worthy all of the winners are, but as fate would have it, I have yet to see any of them. While I try to rectify that situation, here are the big winners:
The Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature went to Wellness, Jake Mahaffy’s independent feature “about a man trying to succeed in a business that doesn't exist.” (There’s a lot of that going around Austin this week.) Two Special Jury Awards were also given out, one for Cinematography (Explicit Ills) and one for Best Ensemble Cast (Up With Me).
In the Documentary category, the Grand Jury Award went to They Killed Sister Dorothy, about the murder of a Catholic nun in the Amazon and the subsequent trial of her killers. The Special Jury Award went to Full Battle Rattle, a look at urban warfare simulations in a “virtual Iraq” built in the Mojave Desert.
Mark Webber’s Explicit Ills, in which “young love, drugs and poverty collide in the city of Philadelphia,” won the Audience Award for Narrative Feature. The audience agreed with the jury when it came to documentaries, bestowing their award on They Killed Sister Dorothy.
Look for reviews of some of these award winners later in the week.