Sundance breakout “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” a quirky, heartfelt story about a pair of high school film lovers who befriend a girl with cancer, won both the U.S. dramatic audience award and the grand jury prize at the 31st Sundance Film Festival awards, announced Saturday.
Thomas Mann, R.J. Cyler, and Olivia Cooke lead the cast of the idiosyncratic tearjerker from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who dedicated the audience award to all the filmmakers and artists in his hometown of Laredo, Texas. Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, and Molly Shannon also star.
“My love goes out to the entire cast and crew,” said Gomez-Rejon. “This movie was about processing loss but really to celebrate a beautiful life and a beautiful man, which is my amazing father … to celebrate his life through humor.”
“The Wolfpack,” Crystal Moselle’s documentary about six movie-loving teenage boys isolated from society picked up the grand jury prize for best documentary.
“I stalked these kids on the street one day and here I am,” said Moselle.
Comedian Tig Notaro, whose documentary “Tig” premiered at the Festival, hosted the ceremony. She also told the audience that she used to volunteer at the Festival in the mid-’90s.
The 31st Sundance Film Festival wraps on Sunday.
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— World cinema documentary, special jury award for editing: “How to Change the World,” Jim Scott
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ldbahr
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Online:
www.sundance.org/festival
