"Padre Nuestro," "Manda Bala" top Sundance awards

By Bob Tourtellotte

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) - Sundance Film Festival juries on Saturday gave top prizes to two films, "Padre Nuestro" and "Manda Bala," highlighting a range of movies here that concerned world issues, the war in Iraq and families.

"Padre Nuestro," which tells of an illegal immigrant from Mexico looking for his father in New York City, won the Grand Jury Prize for best drama made by a U.S filmmaker, while "Manda Bala," a look at crime and corruption in Brazil, earned the jury honor for top U.S. documentary.

Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore called 2007 a "landmark year" due in large part to the numerous topics and quality of independent films screened here at the top U.S. festival for movies made outside Hollywood's mainstream studios.

"For so many different reasons, this work is exceptional in terms of how much of it will get into the marketplace, and the range of issues and maturity of the filmmakers," Gilmore said.

"Padre Nuestro" director Christopher Zalla said that while his movie deals with illegal immigration to the United States, it is also a film that tries to paint a picture of New York as a city of immigrants.

"When we filmed the movie, we talked to a lot of people crossing the (borders), and they were just families -- families coming to feed themselves and reunite with their family," Zalla said.

Sundance juries also hand out honors for international movies, and the World Cinema drama prize went to Israeli movie "Sweet Mud," about a boy dealing with his mentally ill mother on a kibbutz in the 1970s. Denmark's "Enemies of Happiness," which details the life of an Afghani woman politician, earned the World Cinema jury prize for best documentary.

AUDIENCE AWARDS

The juries at Sundance, which is backed by actor Robert Redford's Sundance Institute for filmmaking, are composed of five filmmakers and industry professionals for the U.S.-made movies, and three jury members for the World Cinema awards.

While the jury prizes are the top awards, audience members also vote for their favorite films during the 10-day event held each January in this mountain town east of Salt Lake City.

The Audience Award for best film drama went to "Grace is Gone," starring John Cusack as a father of two dealing with the death of his wife in the Iraq war. That film also earned the screenwriting award for its filmmaker, James Strouse.

Strouse said that throughout the festival he has been asked whether he intended his film to make a political statement, and has answered that "Grace is Gone" is supposed to focus on the families of those men and women who have died.

"The losses suffered in this war to the families left behind transcend political dogma," he said.

His movie was not the only war film honored at Sundance. The documentary jury gave a special prize to nonfiction film, "No End in Sight," about U.S. policy mistakes in the Iraq war.

"Hear and Now," director Irene Taylor Brodsky's personal story about her deaf parents' undergoing surgery to regain their hearing, won the audience trophy for best documentary.