Festival awards Sparkys

PARK CITY — A fantasy about a woman who meets a younger version of herself and a documentary feature about civil war-stricken Sierra Leone were the big winners at this year's Slamdance Film Festival, which refers to its awards as "Sparkys."

The Grand Jury Awards for best drama and best documentary features at the festival went, respectively, to Lyn Shelton's "We Go Way Back" and Philippe Diaz's "Empire in Africa."

The former film also was the a recipient of the Kodak Vision Award for best cinematography, given to director of photography Ben Kasulke.

Also winning Grand Jury Sparkys, named for the festival's canine mascot, were "Dragon," for best animation short; "Under the Rollercoaster," for best documentary short; and "The Saviour," best narrative short.

"The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang," which comes from the producers of "Napoleon Dynamite," took home an audience-voted Sparky for best narrative feature, "Abduction: The Megumi Yakota Story" won the Audience Award for best documentary feature and "Hiro" won a special Spirit of Slamdance award for best gallery short.

The festival also singled out several films for Special Jury Recognition. They included "The Guatemalan Handshake" (narrative feature); "Forgiving Dr. Mengele" (documentary feature); "The Devil" (narrative short), and "Grand Luncheonette" (documentary short).

Festival co-founder and director Peter Baxter congratulated the winners, saying this year's event celebrated "as always, our original mission of showcasing emerging talent. If you want to see the spirit of true independent film, Slamdance is the place to be."

The Slamdance jury included Geralyn White Dreyfous, director of the Salt Lake Film Center and producer of the Academy Award-winning 2004 documentary "Born Into Brothels," and (the 2002 Sundance Film Festival feature "Rain") and filmmaker Peter Care ("The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys").

Slamdance was created by filmmakers whose movies were snubbed by Sundance, and it runs in Park City concurrently with that higher-profile event. The festival's Salt Lake City presence was boosted this year with screenings at the Sprague Library in Sugar House and at Westminster College.

"Salt Lake City has become increasingly important from a public perspective," Baxter said.

The awards were announced Friday night during ceremonies at Club Suede in Park City. The festival announced winners of its various game competitions Monday.

Slamdance screened the award-winning films Friday night as well and will screen them again today, starting at 1 p.m. Those screenings will be held at Westminster College's Gore Auditorium. Tickets are $8.50 and will be available starting at noon.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com