'Push' takes top honors

PARK CITY — A larger-than-life tale about a pregnant teenager was the big winner at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

The crowd-pleasing drama "Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire" took home three awards from the festival Saturday night — including both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for best dramatic feature, as well as a Special Jury Prize for acting (given to comic actress Mo'Nique for her performance as an abusive mother).

Meanwhile, five other films won a pair of awards each.

Among the bigger-name winners were "Five Minutes of Heaven," a thriller starring Liam Neeson (Directing Award, world cinema dramatic, and Screenwriting Award, world cinema) and "An Education," which was penned by British novelist Nick Hornby and features Peter Sarsgaard and Emma Thompson (Audience Award, world cinema dramatic, and Cinematography, world cinema dramatic).

Other multiple award-winners include "Afghan Star" (Audience Award, world cinema documentary, and Directing Award, world cinema documentary), "The Maid" (Jury Prize, world cinema dramatic, and Special Jury Prize for Acting, given to Catalina Saavedra) and "Sin Nombre" (Directing Award, U.S. dramatic, and Excellence in Cinematography, U.S. dramatic).

Grand Jury Prize winners for Best U.S. Documentary and Best World Cinema Documentary went to "We Live in Public" and "Rough Aunties," respectively.

The dolphin conservation piece "The Cove" received the Audience Award for most popular U.S. documentary.

The Sundance Film Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and programming director John Cooper called both the occasion and the 10-day, independent-film showcase "historic."

And adding "to the excitement and experience was the selection of the truly high quality films in this year's competition," Cooper said. "We were blown away and so were audiences."

Actress Jane Lynch ("Spring Breakdown") hosted the awards event, and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("500 Days of Summer) and Benjamin Bratt announced the U.S. Audience Awards and World Cinema Audiences Awards, respectively.

The festival's jury awards were determined by filmmaker Gillian Armstrong, Scott McGehee, Mike White and Boaz Yakin, actors Lou Taylor Pucci, actress Virginia Madsen and others. Audience awards were voted on by those who attended the 10-day festival.

Also, the festival gave out prizes to short films earlier this week, and awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Prize (given to a film that "excels in addressing compelling topics in science or technology") to the drama "Adam."

Highlights from the Sundance awards event, which was held at the Park City Racquet Club, will be broadcast Sunday on the Sundance Channel.

Select award winners will be screened in Park City today. Special "best of festival" programs are scheduled for Monday in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon.

A full list of festival award winners, plus titles and show times for the best-of programs, is available at www.sundance.org/festival.

E-mail: jeff@desnews.com