At Saturday night's closing ceremony presenter William H. Macy honored Sundance 2008 award winners. Following is the list and our thoughts on a handful of the selections.

Doc, Narrative & Shorts Honors:

The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Trouble the Water.

The Audience Award: Documentary, Josh Tickell's Fields of Fuel. Populist doc has a great message about the importance of converting to biodiesel, but overall, it's not terribly artful or nuanced in its style. There's a grating pedagogical note to the film, that despite its intent only to educate, ultimately condescends to its audience.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary & The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary, James Marsh's Man On Wire. High above the streets of New York City determined tightrope walker Philippe Petit glides along his wire between the Twin Towers. The story of this feat, selection grasps at the heart of art and adventure, Petit dancing with death at every turn. Audible gasps rang through the public screening as the film moved along both lyrical and riveting. It's a beautiful and terrifying film with a message of individual triumph that transcends all differences of opinion and lifestyle.

A Special Jury Prize: Documentary, Lisa F. Jackson, director of Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.

The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, Courtney Hunt's Frozen River. Selection took us slightly by surprise considering that all the buzz we heard was none too short of disappointed. Sunshine Cleaning, Ballast and Sugar were much more often spoken of with praise.

The Audience Award: Dramatic, Jonathan Levine's The Wackness. While perhaps not the most probing of the Dramatics, selection definitely has a mass appeal factor, making it well more than solely film festival fare.

Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, The Spirit of Independence, Chusy Haney-Jardine, director of Anywhere, USA.

Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, Work by an Ensemble Cast, Choke. How a film this mediocre made it anywhere near a jury list of any sort is unfathomable.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic, Jens Jonsson's King of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen).

The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic, Amin Matalqa's Captain Abu Raed.

World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, Ernesto Contreras, director of Blue Eyelids.

Jury Prizes in Short Filmmaking, Daniel Robin's My Olympic Summer & Andrew Okpeaha MacLean's Sikumi (On the Ice). There's more going on with Robin's My Olympic Summer than initially meets the eye. A story of familial strife and solitude, the fabrications of the film's narrative pull the short away from what seems the apparent classification as a personal documentary. In coming weeks, we're going to try to dig up some more information about Robin's process, particularly how he used a set of fictions, presented as fact, to sketch very real emotions.

Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking, Simon Ellis' Soft.

Honorable Mentions in Short Filmmaking, Rob Meyer's Aquarium; Xuan Jiang's August 15th; Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega's La Corona (The Crown); Ryosuke Ogawa's Oiran Lyrics; Nash Edgerton's Spider; Nicolas Provost's Suspension; The Vikings' W.

Technical Honors:

The Directing Award: Dramatic, Lance Hammer for Ballast. With storytelling that nods to the work of Charles Burnett and David Gordon Green, Hammer's work throughout Ballast displays an almost excessive patience, his gaze never flinching from moments of truth that in their hardness, romantically painted in his hands, illuminate the human spirit. A filmmaker to watch not only for pleasure but for the necessity of seeing the world, if only for a few minutes, the way he does.

The World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary, Nino Kirtadze for Durakovo: Village of Fools. After wandering into this screening on a whim, we spent the better part of this film thinking it was a narrative-doc hybrid. Apparently, it's all true. Do we need to say anymore?

The World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic, Anna Melikyan for Mermaid.

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award & Alfred P. Sloan Prize, Alex Rivera and David Riker for Sleep Dealer.

World Cinema Screenwriting Award, Samuel Benchetrit for I Always Wanted To Be a Gangster.

Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary, Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring for Patti Smith: Dream of Life.

Excellence in Cinematography Award: Dramatic, Lol Crawley for Ballast. In intimate shots that still convey an emotional standoffishness, Crawley frame by frame enhances the character of Hammer's moving drama. At once jarring and hypnotic, Crawley's cinematography lives in a space of mastery, his work here serving as a reminder of what it means to be an artist.

World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary, al Massad for Recycle.

World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic, Askild Vik Edvardsen for King of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen).

Documentary Editing Award, Joe Bini for Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

World Cinema Documentary Editing Award, Irena Dol for The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.

Award Stats Perspective:

2008 Submissions: 3,624 feature films; 2,021 domestic, 1,603 international

No. of Films Shown: 125 features

World Premieres: 87

Countries Represented: 34

Debut Filmmakers: 53; 32 of which had films in competition.

SM Stats:

No. of Films Screened: 27; 22 features, 5 shorts

No. of Films We Wanted to Screen: 40; 30 features, 10 shorts

No. of Films We Enjoyed: 23

No. of Films We Didn't: 4

No. of Films We Think Everyone Should See ASAP: 3

Feelings on Night of Return to Homebase: 10

For more information on the Sundance Film Festival, visit www.sundance.org.

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