Sundance closes with nods to war and family

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 29 (Reuters) The Sundance Film Festival drew to a close with organizers calling it a landmark year for independent filmmakers who added breadth and depth to movies dealing with global issues, war and family.

''Padre Nuestro'' on Saturday won the jury prize for best film drama by a U.S. filmmaker with a tale of a young illegal immigrant from Mexico who travels to New York seeking a father he never knew.

''Manda Bala'' earned the jury award for best US documentary with a tale of crime and corruption in Brazil.

''Grace is Gone,'' starring John Cusack as a father of two whose wife dies in Iraq, picked up the audience trophy for favorite drama and a writing award for filmmaker James Strouse.

''Grace'' also was among the movies whose distribution rights were sold in one of the most active markets in years at Sundance.

''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,'' said festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, who hailed 2007 as a ''landmark year.'' Sundance, which is backed by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, is the top US gathering for movies made outside Hollywood's mainstream studios, and each year festival favorites top movie marquees worldwide.

With wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and African nations making headlines, ''indie'' filmmakers at the 2007 edition were looking outward for their subject matter as opposed to the insular and more personal movies that often played here in the 1990s.

THE INDIE FAMILY Yet, even as that world view seemed to dominate Sundance 2007, many festival movies were grounded in the idea that family is where people seek safety in troubled times.

''Padre Nuestro'' and ''Grace'' were both examples of tales of family bonds set against issues of illegal immigration and death during wartime, respectively.

But those movies were not the only ones. The audience award for best documentary went to ''Hear and Now,'' in which filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky detailed a year in the life of her deaf parents who decided to undergo surgery so they could hear.

Sundance juries also handed 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, and a special jury prize went to non-fiction film ''No End in Sight,'' about US policy mistakes in the Iraq war.

Like many award winners at Sundance, ''No End'' director Charles Ferguson took the opportunity to address the US-led war in Iraq with an eye toward the future, not the past.

''It might be too late for Iraq, but I hope it isn't too late for this country to conduct itself differently in the future,'' he said.

World Cinema audiences gave ''In the Shadow of the Moon,'' an emotional tale of the Apollo astronauts from Britain's David Sington, the trophy for top documentary, while Irish musical ''Once'' earned the audience award for best drama.

Husband-and-wife Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine won the documentary director's award for ''War/Dance'' about child soldiers in Uganda -- an issue they said they had no idea existed until they began their work.

Finally, the directing award for film drama went to Jeffrey Blitz for ''Rocket Science,'' about a high school stutterer who learns lessons in love while on the debate team.

Reuters DH VP0440