Sundance ends

Well, the end is here. The awards have been handed out and all of our visitors have left. For the first time in a good while, the jury (a bunch of official movie judge snobs) and the audience picked the same movies for both documentary and drama categories. God Grew Tired of Us won both documentary awards(see day 3 below) and Quinceanera won both the drama awards. The coolest story I heard was from the end of God Grew Tired of Us. In the Q&A with the director and subjects of the documentary, someone in the audience asked what they could do to help with Sudanese Lost Boys. They mentioned that they had raised $95,000 of the $110,000 needed for a new school. After the Q&A, a woman from Texas discreetly walked up to the director and handed him a check for $25,000. So when asked, did the movie make an impact, you would have to say "yes".

The one that just killed me was the winner of the World (non-US) Jury Drama award. It was 13 Tzameti, which all of us found disturbing. It did NOT win an audience award. I have to wonder what the jury is thinking.

For more on the awards, here is a nice little summary.

Another important thing we learned over the last few days is that Jasper, our new dog, seems to be the perfect watch dog. Two nights in a row, Jim came in from movies after midnight. Jasper barked and growled in a wonderfully defensive way. However, both mornings he let the snow removal guys do their thing without so much as a whimper. The snow guys show up before 6:00 and run a truck back and forth and then loudly shovel the front steps. As much as it snows, I am glad Jasper has decided they should be doing whatever they do.