Like Crazy gets top prize at Sundance film festival

Jan 31, 2011 - ROMAIN RAYNALDY |

Writer and theatre personality Baba Purandare (left), Dharmendra and Lata Mangeshkar during an event in Mumbai on Saturday. PHO

An Anglo-American story of young love entitled Like Crazy and a moving documentary about euthanasia, How to Die in Oregon, won the top prizes at the Sundance film festival late on Saturday.
The climax of the prestigious 10-day independent movie fest also saw honours for a Norwegian tale of sexual re-awakening and another US-British film about a soldier’s struggle after being injured in Afghanistan.
The Grand Jury Prize for a US drama went to Like Crazy by Drake Doremus, which tells the story of a British and American student couple forced to live apart after she overstays her visa in the US. Receiving the award the young US filmmaker paid tribute to his parents “for believing in love, and teaching me that love is important so I can make this movie one day”.
“This movie is about love, and love never dying, being with you for the rest of your life. Your first love will never leave you and mine didn’t and is here with me tonight”
It is the sixth movie by the California-born cinematic prodigy , who also wrote the screenplay, and was bought last week by Paramount, who plan to release it nationally later in 2011. How to die in Oregon by US filmmaker Peter Richardson, which won the best US documentary prize, is a heartbreakingly honest film which casts a sober light on the reality of euthanasia. It follows the final months, days and moments of terminally-ill patients who decide to end their lives in the western US state, which in 1994 became the first in the US to legalise euthanasia. Richardson dedicated his prize to the “extraordinary individuals who allowed me to enter their life, document their life during the last four years. This award is for you and because of you”.

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