CODA and Hive were the big winners at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival virtual awards ceremony on Tuesday night (February 2), taking home four and three prizes, respectively.

Siân Heder’s US feel-good family tale CODA – set up after producer Patrick Wachsberger took remake rights to French film La Famille Bélier with him when he left Lionsgate – won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast, and Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic prizes.

The muscular awards haul rounded out a memorable festival for Heder and producers Wachsberger and Philippe Rousselet after Apple acquired worldwide rights in a Sundance record $25m deal.

Blerta Basholli’s drama Hive (Kosovo-Switzerland-Macedonia-Albania), about a Kosovan widow who inspires the women in her village to work to support their families after the men have been killed or gone missing in the Kosovo War, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic, and Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic prizes. LevelK handles international sales on the film, which is based on a true story.

Questlove’s Summer Of Soul won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary award as well as the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary prize, while Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee took the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary prize. Neon and Participant will co-distribute the film in North America.

India’s Writing With Fire from Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh won the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Impact for Change.

Dash Shaw’s animation hybrid Cryptozoo, rumoured to be on its way to the Berlinale, won the NEXT Innovator Prize presented by Adobe and will be released in North America by Magnolia Pictures. Match Factory handles international sales on the film.

“This was not a ‘virtual’ festival, it was a real festival and the power of these artists and their work was what made it so,” added Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson. “It has been a privilege to help this work meet new audiences and enter the culture with such fanfare, especially now, when breaking through the noise is harder than ever.”

The festival screened 73 feature-length and 50 short films selected from more than 14,000 submissions. They played on the festival’s online platform and in 28 satellite screen locations across the US. Award-winning films will screen for passholders on February 3. Read the full article in Screen.