2019 Sundance: ‘Knock Down the House’ wins Overall Festival Favorite

All 121 Features Screened Eligible for Award

The Sundance Institute today announced Knock Down the House as the winner of the Festival Favorite Award, selected by audience votes from the 121 features screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, which took place in Park City, Salt Lake City and Sundance, Utah from January 24th through February 3rd. The Festival Favorite is the 29th and final recognition bestowed on this year’s Features, including juried prizes and category-specific Audience Awards; others were announced at a ceremony in Park City on February 2 and a full list is available here. Runners-up and other strong contenders for the Festival Favorite Award included Ask Dr. Ruth, The Biggest Little Farm, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and Blinded by the Light.

Knock Down the House, which had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, follows four women political candidates from around the country – a young bartender in the Bronx, a coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia, a grieving mother in Nevada and a registered nurse in Missouri – during the 2018 midterm elections as they took to the campaign trail, built and engaged their bases, and built a movement. The film was directed by Rachel Lears and produced by Lears, Sarah Olson and Robin Blotnick. 

John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, said, “This film is a timely and powerful portrait of bold, risk-taking women, all from very different backgrounds and communities, and we knew it would resonate with and inspire audiences.” Ballots distributed at each screening were counted as the Festival Favorite Award determination. 

Knock Down the House was bought by Netflix for a whopping $10M.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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