A festival of women: Sundance 2011

When handing out a prize at the 2011 Sundance Festival, America Ferrara from Ugly Betty said it was a festival of women.

US critic Todd McCarthy, a 25-year veteran of the festival, said 2011 had featured the best films ever.

Understandably, some tough choices had to be made. Yet as in 2010 when Winter's Bone emerged as the clear frontrunner, and went on to win the hallowed Grand Jury Prize, this year there was no doubting that Like Crazy was going to figure towards the top of the list. (It was bought early on for US$4 million, by Paramount, a studio that doesn't normally partake in Indie fare.)

Director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) told the crowd how he and his juror colleagues liked the film "like crazy".

Of course it's probably no coincidence that last year's Sundance darling Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone starred in the film together with British newcomer Felicity Jones.

Jones in fact won a Special Jury Prize for her work in the sometimes raunchy story, where she stars as a young British girl who meets an American man in college and their love is tested when she is required to leave the country.

Even if there are no official actress prizes, Brit Marling, another hot newcomer - anointed by the New York Times as the one to watch - was awarded a special jury prize for Another Earth together with her director Mike Cahill.

She co-wrote and stars in the film, an unlikely love story that takes place just before the discovery of a duplicate earth. Marling also appeared in the well-received Sound of My Voice, one of several festival films centred around a cult. She co-wrote (and co-produced) that one as well.

The other IT girl of the festival, Elizabeth Olsen, sister of Ashley and Mary-Kate, did not personally take out an award, but her first-time director, Sean Durkin, won the directing prize for Martha Marcy May Marlene where Olsen stars as a young woman who escapes from an upstate New York cult, lead by none other than John Hawkes, currently Oscar-nominated for Winter's Bone.

If you're getting the impression that Sundance is a little incestuous, you wouldn't be wrong. Olsen's second film at the festival, Silent House, was fascinating in that the whole film was shot in one take - and she is in nearly every frame.

Not bad for someone who started acting in movies only a year ago and she also has Bruce Beresford's more upbeat Peace, Love and Misunderstanding in the can.

Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double screened out of competition, so was ineligible for prizes, though our neighbours across the Tasman scored with Ariel Kleiman's Deeper Than Yesterday, which won the international short film prize.

The awards ceremony couldn't have been more different to Cannes or the Oscars. There's little room for glamour here. Still I was starkly reminded where I was when a woman was offering two tickets to the rather dull awards ceremony for $250. I am in America after all.