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Sundance’s top prizes go to ‘Atropia’ and ‘Seeds’

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Sundance’s top prizes go to ‘Atropia’ and ‘Seeds’

The Sundance Film Festival announced its 2025 awards during a ceremony in Park City, Utah, on Friday. “Atropia,” directed by Hailey Gates, won the U.S. dramatic competition’s grand jury prize for its darkly comedic take on the intersection of war and performance, while Brittany Shyne’s “Seeds,” an intimate exploration of Black generational farmers in the South, was awarded the U.S. documentary competition’s top honor.

A biting satire set inside a military role-playing facility, “Atropia,” which stars Alia Shankar, Callum Turner and Chloë Sevigny, follows an aspiring actor who falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent, forcing them both to reckon with the blurred lines between performance and reality. The jury praised Gates’ feature debut as “both hilarious and damning in its portrayal of the theater of war.” “Seeds” was recognized for its poetic and deeply personal portrait of Black farmers fighting to preserve their land and heritage.

In the world cinema categories, the dramatic grand jury prize was awarded to “Sabar Bonda” (Cactus Pears), a co-production from India, the U.K. and Canada directed by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. The film tells the story of a city dweller returning to his rural hometown for a mourning period and forming an unexpected bond with a local farmer. The documentary grand jury prize went to “Cutting Through Rocks,” directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Reza Eyni, which follows a groundbreaking councilwoman in a rural Iranian village as she fights against patriarchal traditions.

The NEXT Innovator Award, given to a film in the festival’s section that highlights bold and unconventional storytelling, was awarded to Charlie Shackleton’s “Zodiac Killer Project,” a meditation on the true-crime genre told through 16mm footage of locations the filmmaker had to abandon after his option rights for a novel were declined.

“Twinless,” a dramedy about two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, won the U.S. dramatic audience award, while “André Is an Idiot,” a darkly comic documentary about a man confronting his own mortality, was honored in the U.S. documentary category.

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In the world cinema competition, “DJ Ahmet,” about a North Macedonian teenager navigating family expectations and his love for music, took the audience award for drama, while “Prime Minister,” a behind-the-scenes portrait of former New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern, won for documentary.

The NEXT audience award went to “East of Wall,” a neo-Western about a rebellious horse trainer and a group of wayward teenagers.

Among other jury awards, the directing prize in the U.S. dramatic competition went to Rashad Frett for “Ricky,” about a man struggling with the challenges of life after incarceration, while the U.S. documentary directing award was presented to Geeta Gandbhir for “The Perfect Neighbor,” an examination of Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” laws. The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award went to Eva Victor for “Sorry, Baby,” a dark comedy about a young woman processing trauma.

Farmer Willie Head Jr. in the documentary “Seeds.”

(Brittany Shyne)

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Dylan O’Brien received a special jury award for acting in “Twinless,” while “Plainclothes,” a drama about an undercover officer assigned to entrap gay men in the 1990s, was honored for ensemble cast. In the documentary category, “Selena y Los Dinos,” a portrait of the late Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla, was awarded a special jury prize for archival storytelling, and “Life After” won a special jury award for its thought-provoking investigation of a historic right-to-die case.

While this year’s festival was relatively quiet on the dealmaking front, the honorees hope to follow the trajectory of other recent Sundance prize winners that went on to Oscar glory, including “CODA,” “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Summer of Soul” and “Minari.”

The 41st edition of the festival concludes on Sunday.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA

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Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA
SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA is shared with the audience by investigator Steve Sue in a calm and charming manner, but this documentary tells a powerful, positive and fascinating story. The “hang loose” thumb, pinky sign that originated in Hawaii and carries many meanings is the focus of this film. I just learned this gesture is called a “Shaka” and has a worldwide impact.  And, there are Shaka Contests.  Who knew? And how do you throw a Shaka? For me, […]
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Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day

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Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day

Victoria Jones, the daughter of Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, was reportedly found dead at a hotel in San Francisco on New Year’s Day. She was 34.

According to TMZ, the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a medical emergency call at the Fairmont San Francisco early Thursday morning. The paramedics pronounced Victoria dead at the scene before turning it over to the San Francisco Police Department for further investigation, the outlet said.

An SFPD representative confirmed to The Times that officers responded to a call at approximately 3:14 a.m. Thursday regarding a report of a deceased person at the hotel and that they met with medics at the scene who declared an unnamed adult female dead.

Citing law enforcement sources, NBC Bay Area also reported that the deceased woman found in a hallway of the hotel was believed to be Jones and that police did not suspect foul play.

“We are deeply saddened by an incident that occurred at the hotel on January 1, 2026,” the Fairmont told NBC Bay Area in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences are with the family and loved ones during this very difficult time. The hotel team is actively cooperating and supporting police authorities within the framework of the ongoing investigation.”

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The medical examiner conducted an investigation at the scene, but Jones’ cause of death remains undetermined. Dispatch audio obtained by TMZ and People indicated that the 911 emergency call was for a suspected drug overdose.

Jones was the daughter of Tommy Lee and ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley. Her brief acting career included roles on films such as “Men in Black II” (2002), which starred her father, and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005), which was directed by her father. She also appeared in a 2005 episode of “One Tree Hill.”

Page Six reported that Jones had been arrested at least twice in 2025 in Napa County, including an arrest on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance and drug possession.

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Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me

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Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me

Just when you think that you’ve seen and heard all sides of the human migration debate, and long after you fear that the cruel, the ignorant and the scapegoaters have won that shouting match, a film comes along and defies ignorance and prejudice by both embracing and upending the conventional “immigrant” narrative.

“I Was a Strranger” is the first great film of 2026. It’s cleverly written, carefully crafted and beautifully-acted with characters who humanize many facets of the “migration” and “illegal immigration” debate. The debut feature of writer-director Brandt Andersen, “Stranger” is emotional and logical, blunt and heroic. It challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions and prejudices and the very definition of “heroic.”

The fact that this film — which takes its title from the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35 — is from the same faith-based film distributor that made millions by feeding the discredited human trafficking wish fulfillment fantasy “Sound of Freedom” to an eager conservative Christian audience makes this film something of a minor miracle in its own right.

But as Angel Studios has also urged churchgoers not just to animated Nativity stories (“The King of Kings”) and “David” musicals, but Christian resistence to fascism (“Truth & Treason” and “Bonheoffer”) , their atonement is almost complete.

Andersen deftly weaves five compact but saga-sized stories about immigrants escaping from civil-war-torn Syria into a sort of interwoven, overlapping “Babel” or “Crash” about migration.

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“The Doctor” is about a Chicago hospital employee (Yasmine Al Massri of “Palestine 36” and TV’s “Quantico”) whose flashback takes us to the hospital in Aleppo, Syria, bombed and terrorized by the Assad regime’s forces, and what she and her tween daughter (Massa Daoud) went through to escape — from literally crawling out of a bombed building to dodging death at the border to the harrowing small boat voyage from Turkey to Greece.

“The Soldier” follows loyal Assad trooper Mustafa (Yahya Mahayni was John the Baptist in Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints”) through his murderous work in Aleppo, and the crisis of conscience that finally hits him as he sees the cruel and repressive regime he works for at its most desperate.

“The Smuggler” is Marwan, a refugee-camp savvy African — played by the terrific French actor Omar Sy of “The Intouchables” and “The Book of Clarence” — who cynically makes his money buying disposable inflatable boats, disposable outboards and not-enough-life-jackets in Turkey to smuggle refugees to Greece.

“The Poet” (Ziad Bakri of “Screwdriver”) just wants to get his Syrian family of five out of Turkey and into Europe on Marwan’s boat.

And “The Captain” (Constantine Markoulakis of “The Telemachy”) commands a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, a man haunted by the harrowing rescues he must carry out daily and visions of the bodies of those he doesn’t.

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Andersen, a Tampa native who made his mark producing Tom Cruise spectacles (“American Made”), Mel Gibson B-movies (“Panama”) and the occasional “Everest” blockbuster, expands his short film “Refugee” to feature length for “I Was a Stranger.” He doesn’t so much alter the formula or reinvent this genre of film as find points of view that we seldom see that force us to reconsider what we believe through their eyes.

Sy’s Smuggler has a sickly little boy that he longs to take to Chicago. He runs his ill-gotten-gains operation, profiting off human misery, to realize that dream. We see glimpses of what might be compassion, but also bullying “customers” and his new North African assistant (Ayman Samman). Keeping up the hard front he shows one and all, we see him callously buy life jackets in the bazaar — never enough for every customer to have one in any given voyage.

The Captain sits for dinner with family and friends and has to listen to Greek prejudices and complaints about this human life and human rights crisis, which is how the worlds sees Greece reacting to this “invasion.” But as he and his first mate recount lives saved and the horrors of lives lost, that quibbling is silenced.

Here and there we see and hear (in Arabic and Greek with subtitles, and English) little moments of “rising above” human pettiness and cruelty and the simple blessings of kindness.

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“I Was a Stranger” was finished in 2024 and arrives in cinemas at one of the bleakest moments in recent history. Cruelty is running amok, unchecked and unpunished. Countries are being destabilized, with the fans of alleged “strong man” rule cheering it on.

Andersen carefully avoids politics — Middle Eastern, Israeli, European and American — save for the opening scene’s zoom in on that Chicago hospital, passing a gaudily named “Trump” hotel in the process, and a general condemnation of Syria’s Assad mob family regime.

But Andersen’s bold movie, with its message so against the grain of current events, compromised media coverage and the mostly conservative audience that has become this film distributor’s base, plays like a wet slap back to reality.

And as any revival preacher will tell you, putting a positive message out there in front of millions is the only way to convert hundreds among the millions who have lost their way.

star

Rating: PG-13, violence, smoking, racial slurs

Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Ziad Bakri, Omar Sy, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud, Jason Beghe and Constantine Markoulakis

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Credits: Scripted and directed by Brandt Andersen. An Angel Studios release.

Running time: 1:43

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine

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