2024 Sundance Film Festival Awards: ‘In the Summers, ‘Didi,’ ‘Daughters’ Top Winners

Erik Anderson January 26, 2024

The Sundance Film Festival handed out its 2024 laurels for the best of the fest across U.S., World Cinema, Documentary and Audience Awards today where several films earned multiple wins.

In the U.S. Dramatic competition, Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers was a double winner, taking the directing and grand jury prizes. The film tells the story of a journey that spans the formative years of two sisters’ lives as they navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The film currently does not have U.S. distribution but a pick up post win is expected soon.

“To the filmmakers here, you shared your films with us this week. Some of you may leave with a trophy, but you were all chosen from tens of thousands of submissions. Your work moved us,” said incoming Sundance Film Festival Director Eugene Hernandez.

Sean Wang, who just got an Oscar nomination on Tuesday for his documentary short film Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, saw his feature film debut Didi a double winner as well. The coming of age film snagged the ensemble prize and the audience award for U.S. Dramatic.

Nico Parker was the Breakthrough Performance winner (U.S. Comp) for Suncoast for her role as Doris, an awkward high schooler whose unique and troubling home life ultimately provides opportunities for her freedom and an unexpected entrée into the popular kids’ clique. The film was already held by Searchlight Pictures and will be released in select theaters on February 2 and on available to stream on Hulu February 9.

Jesse Eisenberg’s newest directorial effort, A Real Pain, won him the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. The film, about two cousins (Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin) who visit Poland to pay homage to their recently deceased grandmother and wind up in a tour group of the Holocaust, was picked up by Searchlight Pictures for $11M.

Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s Daughters won two audience prizes, Audience Award: US Documentary and Festival Favorite. The film details four young girls as they prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail.

Big buys were still the name of the game this Sundance with Netflix swooping in with $17M for the horror film It’s What’s Inside and Amazon MGM picking up My Old Ass for #15M.

Here is the complete list of winners.

U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance
Nico Parker, Suncoast

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble
Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, Chang Li Hua, Didi

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic
Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain

Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic
Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
In the Summers

US DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

US Documentary Special Jury Award for Sound
Gaucho Gaucho

US Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art Of Change
Union

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: US Documentary
Frida, Carla Gutiérrez

Directing Award: US Documentary
Sugarcane, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
Porcelain War

WORLD DRAMATIC COMPETITION AWARDS

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Original Music
Handling the Undead, Peter Raeburn

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting
Preeti Panigrahi, Girls Will Be Girls

Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic
In The Land Of Brothers, Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Sujo

WORLD DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION AWARDS

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Craft
Nocturnes, Director and Producer: Anirban Dutta, Director: Anupama Srinivasan

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Director Johan Grimonprez

Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary
Ibelin, Director Benjamin Ree

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
A New Kind of Wilderness

NEXT AWARDS

NEXT Special Jury Award
Desire Lines

NEXT Innovator Award
Little Death

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Audience Award: NEXT
Kneecap

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary
Ibelin

Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic
Girls Will Be Girls

Audience Award: US Documentary
Daughters

Audience Award: US Dramatic
Didi

Festival Favorite Award
Daughters

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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.