Three new east films honoured at Sundance

Three films from the new east have won awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Polish films The Lure (2015, dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska) and All These Sleepless Nights (2015, dir. Michal Marczak) won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Unique Vision and Design and the Directing Award for World Cinema Documentary, respectively. Ondřej Hudeček, of the Czech Republic, won the Short Film Special Jury Award for Best Direction for his short film Peacock (2015).

The Lure is a musical horror film, following the story of three murderous mermaid sisters-turned-singers, while All These Sleepless Nights centres on a restless group of students during a Warsaw summer. Peacock recounts the true story of the childhood and youth of the influential Czech author and playwright Ladislav Stroupežnický.

The Sundance Film Festival 2016 took place from 21 – 31 January in Utah, USA. Held since 1985, it is the largest independent film festival in the United States.