As the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Awards were announced, Cinereach was cheering loudly for four of the films honored. Congratulations to Circumstance, Kinyarwanda, Pariah and If a Tree Falls!

Photo Courtesy of Tarek Moukaddem

Circumstance, a grantee in both Summer 2009 and Summer 2010, won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award. This award followed on the heels of the excellent news that Circumstance had been acquired by Participant Media for North American distribution. In her narrative feature debut, writer/director Maryam Keshavarz follows a wealthy Iranian family struggling to contain a teenager’s growing sexual rebellion and her brother’s dangerous obsession.

Kinyarwanda, a recent grantee in Summer 2010, won the World Dramatic Competition Audience Award. This intricately structured narrative, written and directed by Alrick Brown, interweaves stories that provide a complex depiction of life and human resilience in the face of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Pariah, a grantee in both Winter 2009 and Winter 2010, received the award for Excellence in Cinematography for US Dramatic Filmmaking - recognizing the work of Director of Photography Bradford Young. Also incredibly exciting was the news that Pariah had been acquired by Focus Features for distribution! Writer/Director Dee Rees’ narrative feature debut follows a Brooklyn teenager who juggles conflicting identities and endures heartbreak in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Photo Courtesy of TJ Watt

If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, which was supported through the Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute, won the Documentary Editing Award. Directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman, this film tells the story of one man’s arrest for his involvement with an environmentalist group charged as terrorists.