'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' sweeps Sundance Awards

?Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,? a moving drama about a teenager who befriends a classmate with cancer, won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 31.

Sundance winners regularly go on to critical and awards success at Hollywood?s main prize-giving ceremonies. Last year?s top winner, ?Whiplash,? is nominated for best picture at this year?s Oscars.

The U.S. documentary award meanwhile went to ?The Wolfpack,? while in the non-U.S. categories the main prizes went to a Scottish filmmaker and a movie about Ukraine?s ongoing struggle in the shadow of its former Soviet masters.

?Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon took the Grand Jury Prize for a U.S. drama at the end of a two-hour awards ceremony in the Utah mountain resort Park City.

It also took the U.S. drama audience prize -- the third year in row that the top U.S. film has won both Grand Jury and audience awards, following ?Whiplash? last year and ?Fruitvale Station? in 2013.

The best director for U.S. drama was named as Robert Eggers for his horror movie ?The Witch.?

The win for ?Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? came against what was considered strong competition this year from other entries that stirred considerable buzz at Sundance, including ?The Witch? and the coming-of-age hip hop drama ?Dope.?

Among U.S. documentaries, ?The Wolfpack? by Crystal Moselle took the Grand Jury Prize, while best director went to Matthew Heineman for ?Cartel Land? about drug wars in Mexico.

In the world cinema categories, the Grand Jury Prize for a drama went to ?Slow West? by Scottish filmmaker John Maclean, which follows a teenager on a journey across 19th century frontier America in search of the woman he loves.

?Thanks to...