When Sundance is over, those who went to go play in the snow for a week will be parsing over the films that won awards, trying to figure out if they made the final cut. But while "Sundance 2009 Winner" will probably be plastered all over a lot of advertising, no one will give much thought to the people who gave those awards. But Sundance has selected their jurors for this year, the people who will hand out awards like kings and queens from a throne, so lets give them their due before falling into a snowbank.
The six juries, as always, are made up of a diverse mix of actors, producers, directors, and people who don't have a thing to do with the movie industry. For example, screenwriter/director Mike White has taken his place on the dramatic jury, but over on the world dramatic jury there's Colin Brown, the editor of Screen International. The Alfred P. Sloan Jury, which gives an award to features that focus on science or technology, goes even further out there. Their jury boasts Fran Bagenal, a professor of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, as well as screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who wrote that super-scientific movie The Day After Tomorrow.
The full list of jury members is below for your perusal. Have fun shivering in the snow and not skiing!
Dramatic Jury
Virginia Madsen – (Actress: Sideway, Number 23, The Rainmaker, David Lynch's Dune)
Scott McGehee – (Producer/Director/Writer: Uncertainty, The Deep End, Suture)
Maud Nadler – (Producer/HBO Films: Relative Values)
Mike White – (Writer/Director/Producer: Year of the Dog)
Boaz Yakin – (Director/Writer/Producer: Fresh, Remember the Titans, Hostel)
Documentary Jury
Patrick Creadon – (Cinematographer/Director/Writer: Wordplay, I.O.U.S.A., Flow: For the Love of Water)
Carl Deal – (Director/Producer: Trouble the Water)
Andrea Meditch – (Executive Producer/Producer: Man on Wire, In the Shadow of the Moon)
Sam Pollard – (Editor: When the Levees Broke, Jungle Fever, Mo' Better Blues)
Marina Zenovich – (Director/Producer/Writer: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired)
World Dramatic Jury
Colin Brown (New York) – (Editor: Screen International)
Christine Jeffs (New Zealand) – (Director/Writer: Rain, Stroke; Director: Sunshine Cleaning)
Vibeke Windelov (Denmark) – (Producer: Dogville, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark)
World Documentary Jury
Gillian Armstrong (Australia) – (Director: Death Defying Acts, Oscar & Lucinda, Little Women)
Thom Powers (New York) – (Documentary Programmer, Toronto International Film Festival)
Hubert Sauper (France) – (Director/Producer: Darwin's Nightmare)
Shorts Jury
[[ br. present jury prizes in filmmaking to u.s. one international short playing well as honorable mentions based outstanding achievement and merit. will be announced at the sundance film festival shorts awards ceremony on january ]]
Gerardo Naranjo – (Director/Writer/Producer: Voy a explotar, Malachance, Perro Negro)
Lou Taylor Pucci – (Actor: Thumbsucker)
Sharon Swart – (Reporter: Variety)
Alfred P. Sloan Jury
Provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Prize is presented to the writer and director of an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character.
Fran Bagenal – (Professor of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado)
Rodney Brooks – (Panasonic Professor of Robotics, MIT Computer Science & AI Lab)
Ray Gesteland – (Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah)
Jeffrey Nachmanoff – (Writer: The Day After Tomorrow; Writer/Director: Traitor)
Alex Rivera – (Director/Writer/Editor: Sleep Dealer)
