MUMBAI: Robbie Pickering‘s Natural Selection has bagged the South by Southwest Film Festival‘s grand jury and audience awards for narrative feature. The award ceremony held in Austin, Texas, saw prizes in 27 categories being handed out.
Natural Selection, a dramedy in which a childless Christian housewife tracks down the illegitimate son of her dying husband, drew lot of buyers after its Sunday world premiere.
Acquisition in this year‘s festival seemed to be heavier than in earlier years, with buys including IFC Midnight picking up the British horror film Kill List and the Weinstein Co. buying football documentary Undefeated. Buyers were also seen interested in titles including Weekend and Fightville.
Natural Selection also picked up jury awards for screenplay, editing, music and breakthrough performances from Rachael Harris (The Hangover) and Matt O‘Leary (Live Free or Die Hard).
In the documentary feature competition, Tristan Patterson‘s Dragonslayer won the grand jury and cinematography awards, while Where Soldiers Come From won for editing and The City Dark for music.
In addition to Natural Selection, audience awards were given to Vikram Gandhi‘s Kumare (doc feature), Jeff Myer‘s Becoming Santa (Spotlight Premieres) and Andrew Haigh‘s Weekend (Emerging Visions).
