- Sundance Film Festival Awards 2005: Winners include Ira Sachs’ father-son love-triangle drama Forty Shades of Blue, Zézé Gamboa’s post-Angolan Civil War drama The Hero, Eugene Jarecki’s antiwar documentary Why We Fight, and performers Amy Adams (Junebug) and Lou Taylor Pucci (Thumbsucker).
Sundance Film Festival Awards 2005: Father-son love-triangle drama, antiwar documentary among winners
The winners at the 2005 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City, Utah, between Jan. 20–30, have been announced: Ira Sachs’ father-son love-triangle drama Forty Shades of Blue topped the U.S. Dramatic category while Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight was the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner. (This year’s Sundance Film Festival winners are listed further below.)
Reportedly inspired by Satyajit Ray’s 1964 Indian drama Charulata, Forty Shades of Blue centers on a particularly delicate love triangle consisting of a Memphis-based music producer (Rip Torn), his Russian companion (Dina Korzun), and the producer’s estranged son (Darren E. Burrows). Sachs co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Rohatyn.
Why We Fight chronicles the many decades of American-made warfare as seen through a sociopolitical-economic-ideological prism. In case the title rings a bell, that’s because Why We Fight was the name of a series of World War II propaganda films – e.g., Prelude to War, The Nazis Strike – made at the behest of the U.S. government. These were mostly directed by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak, and narrated by future Academy Award winner Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948).
Of note, two years ago Capturing the Friedmans – directed by Eugene’s brother, Andrew Jarecki – also won Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize.
Post-civil war Angola, post-divorce Brooklyn
More Sundance Film Festival winners: The World Dramatic Grand Jury Prize went to Zézé Gamboa’s The Hero, the story of four Luanda denizens – a crippled war veteran, a 10-year-old boy, a teacher, a sex worker – attempting to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Angola’s 30-year civil conflict.
Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich’s Shape of the Moon, a portrait of a slum-dwelling family’s daily life in Indonesia, was given the World Documentary Jury Prize.
U.S. filmmaker Noah Baumbach won both the Best Director (Narrative) and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting awards for The Squid and the Whale, a semi-autobiographical dramatic comedy about two brothers (Jesse Eisenberg and [Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates’ son] Owen Kline) trying to cope with the divorce of their Brooklyn-based parents (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney).
The Best Documentary Director was Jeff Feuerzeig for The Devil and Daniel Johnston, about the bipolar-disorder-suffering American musician.
Acting winners Amy Adams, Lou Taylor Pucci
Amy Adams and Lou Taylor Pucci* received Special Jury Prizes for Acting for their performances in, respectively, Phil Morrison’s Junebug and Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker.
In the former, Adams plays a pregnant woman who hopes that bringing a child onto this planet will help to set right her troubled relationship with her husband (Ben Mckenzie). In the latter, Pucci plays Tilda Swinton and Vincent D’Onofrio’s titular teenage son.
Special Jury Prizes for Originality of Vision went to Miranda July’s romantic comedy-drama Me and You and Everyone We Know and Rian Johnson’s neo-noir mystery Brick.
* Update: A few weeks later, Lou Taylor Pucci would be named Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival.
Rwandan genocide, another family-unfriendly love triangle
The Sundance Film Festival’s World Documentary Audience Award went to Peter Raymont’s Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, about the former Canadian Lieutenant-General and head of the United Nations peacekeeping force at the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The recipient of the World Cinema Audience Award was, like Forty Shades of Blue, an in-family love triangle tale: Susanne Bier’s Danish drama Brothers, which had earned Ulrich Thomsen and Connie Nielsen Best Actor and Best Actress honors at last year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.
Also like Forty Shades of Blue, Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow is a Memphis-set drama, in this case about a pimp and drug dealer (Terrence Howard) who dreams of becoming a renowned rapper. Hustle & Flow nabbed the Audience Award for Best U.S. Dramatic Film while also earning Amelia Vincent the Best Cinematography (Dramatic) prize, and Geoffrey Richman and Conor O’Neill a Special Prize for Editing.
The Audience Award for Best U.S. Documentary was given to Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro’s Murderball, about a group of wheelchair-rugby players.
This year’s Sundance Film Festival winners are listed immediately below.
Sundance Film Festival Awards 2005
Dramatic Grand Jury Prize (United States): Forty Shades of Blue
Documentary Grand Jury Prize (United States): Why We Fight
World Dramatic Grand Jury Prize: The Hero / O Herói (Angola | France | Portugal)
World Documentary Grand Jury Prize: Shape of the Moon / Stand van de maan (The Netherlands)
Special Jury Prize (U.S. Documentary): After Innocence – Dir.: Jessica Sanders
Special Jury Prize (World Dramatic) (tie): The Forest for the Trees / Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen – Dir.: Maren Ade (Germany) | Live-In Maid / Cama adentro – Dir.: Jorge Gaggero (Argentina | Spain)
Special Jury Prize (World Documentary) (tie): The Liberace of Baghdad – Dir.: Sean McAllister (United Kingdom) | Mur – dir.: Simone Bitton (France | Israel)
Best Director (U.S. Dramatic): Noah Baumbach – The Squid and the Whale
Best Director (U.S. Documentary): Jeff Feuerzeig – The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (U.S. Dramatic): Noah Baumbach – The Squid and the Whale
Best Cinematography (U.S. Dramatic): Hustle & Flow – Amy Vincent
Best Cinematography (U.S. Documentary): The Education of Shelby Knox – Gary Griffin
Special Jury Prize for Acting (U.S. Dramatic) (tie): Amy Adams – Junebug | Lou Taylor Pucci – Thumbsucker
Special Jury Prize for Editing (U.S. Documentary): Murderball – Geoffrey Richman & Conor O’Neill
Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision (U.S. Dramatic) (tie): Brick | Me and You and Everyone We Know
Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking (United States): Family Portrait – Dir.: Patricia Riggen
Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking (International): Wasp – Dir.: Andrea Arnold (United Kingdom)
Special Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking (International): Elke’s Visit – Dir.: Morgan Dews (Spain)
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: Grizzly Man – Dir.: Werner Herzog
Audience Award (U.S. Dramatic): Hustle & Flow
Audience Award (U.S. Documentary): Murderball
Audience Award (World Dramatic): Brothers / Brødre (Denmark)
Audience Award (World Documentary): Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire (Canada)
“Sundance Film Festival Awards 2005: Blue, Amy Adams” notes
Sundance Film Festival website.
Amy Adams Junebug image: Sony Pictures Classics.
“Sundance Film Festival Awards 2005: Blue, Amy Adams” last modified in September 2026.