2012 Sundance Film Festival

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 until January 29, 2012 in Park City, Utah.^[1]

2012 Sundance Film Festival

Festival poster
Location	Park City
Hosted by	Sundance Institute
Festival date	January 19–29, 2012
Language	English
Website	sundance.org/festival

64 short films were selected for the festival from 7,675 submissions, including 27 international shorts from 3,592 submissions.^[2]

Non-competition features

Midnight

• Black Rock
• Excision
• Grabbers
• John Dies at the End
• The Pact
• Shut Up and Play the Hits
• Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
• V/H/S

Awards

• Grand Jury Prize: Documentary - The House I Live In
• Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic - Beasts of the Southern Wild
• World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary - The Law in These Parts
• World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic - Violeta Went to Heaven (Violeta se Fue a Los Cielos)
• Audience Award: U.S. Documentary - The Invisible War
• Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic - The Surrogate (retitled The Sessions)
• World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary - Searching for Sugar Man
• World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic - Valley of Saints
• Best of NEXT Audience Award - Sleepwalk with Me
• U.S. Directing Award: Documentary - The Queen of Versailles
• U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic - Middle of Nowhere
• World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary - 5 Broken Cameras
• World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic - Teddy Bear
• Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award - Safety Not Guaranteed
• World Cinema Screenwriting Award - Young & Wild
• U.S. Documentary Editing Award - Detropia
• World Cinema Documentary Editing Award - Indie Game: The Movie
• Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Documentary - Chasing Ice
• Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Dramatic - Beasts of the Southern Wild
• World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary - Putin's Kiss
• World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic - My Brother the Devil
• U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for an Agent of Change - Love Free or Die
• U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance - Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
• U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Independent Film Producing - Smashed and Nobody Walks
• U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting - The Surrogate (retitled The Sessions)
• World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Artistic Vision - Can
• World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize for its Celebration of the Artistic Spirit - Searching for Sugar Man
• Jury Prize: Short Filmmaking - Fishing Without Nets
• Jury Prize: Short Film, U.S. Fiction - The Black Balloon
• Jury Prize: Short Film, International Fiction - The Return
• Jury Prize: Short Film, Non-Fiction - The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
• Jury Prize: Animated Short Film - A Morning Stroll
• Short Film Audience Award - The Debutante Hunters^[3]

Juries

Jury members were announced on January 10, 2012.^[4] Presenters of awards are followed by asterisks:^[5][6]

U.S. Documentary Jury Fenton Bailey* Shari Berman Heather Croall* Charles Ferguson* Kim Roberts* U.S. Dramatic Jury Justin Lin* Anthony Mackie* Cliff Martinez* Lynn Shelton* Amy Vincent*

World Documentary Jury Nick Fraser* Clara Kim* Jean-Marie Teno* World Dramatic Jury Julia Ormond* Richard Peña* Alexei Popogrebski*

Alfred P. Sloan Jury Scott Burns Tracy Day Helen Fisher* Short Film Jury Mike Judge* Dee Rees* Shane Smith*

Others who presented awards included Mike Birbiglia and Eric Wareheim.^[5]

Premieres

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) web documentary Bear 71 premiered January 20 in an installation at the festival's New Frontier multimedia program.^[7] The NFB documentary Payback, based on Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, and the documentary A Place at the Table, also premiered at the festival.^[8]