“The Persian Version,” A feature film based on Maryam Keshavarz’s Iranian-American family, and “Kokomo City, a film that presents the stories following four Black transgender sex workers, were the darlings of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony Friday morning.
“The Persian Version” took home the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, and Keshavarz was bestowed the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic.
“Kokomo City” also landed two awards — the NEXT Innovator Award and the NEXT Audience Award. The film’s director D. Smith, during her acceptance speech for the Audience Award, told about the lost relationship she experienced with her father over identity.
“I hope that this film somehow comes across his timeline and he finds some space to be proud of me, or compelled to watch the film and understand the truth of true transgenderism” she said. “I want every trans woman, every Black person, every Black woman, to understand we’re on the precipice of a revolution. We’re on the precipice of healing.”
For her Audience Award acceptance speech, Keshavarz stepped to the microphone and said she had been crying in her hotel room Thursday night.
“(I was crying) because the eight-year-old in me never thought an American audience would come and watch a film about my family,” she said. “I was born in America, but I never felt truly American. To have people laugh and be filled with joy and clap and dance meant so much to me.”
In another colorful segment of the ceremony, filmmaker Anna Hints celebrated her Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary for her film “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” by singing a thank-you song to the Sundance Film Festival family in her native Icelandic.
Other awards included the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary to Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson for “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic to Charlotte Regan for “Scrapper” and the Festival Favorite Award to “Radical,” by Christopher Zalla.
This year’s Sundance Film Festival marks the first in-person event since 2020, and the Sundance Institute changed things up a bit and hosted its 2023 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Ray Theatre.
The award-winning films will screen in person and via the online Sundance Film Festival platform on Saturday, Jan. 28, and Sunday, Jan. 29. Tickets for all award-screening films are available at festival.sundance.org.
For a full list of the award winners, see accompanying box.