Native film scores at Sundance

'Frozen River' wins top film award at SundanceA film interweaving the issues of Indian sovereignty, racial bias, and the harsh reality of American poverty into an action-packed thriller that expresses the transcendent power of family, love and friendship has earned the top prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

"Frozen River," writer/director Courtney Hunt's first full length drama, won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Feature Jan. 26, the final wrap-up of the annual 10-day independent film festival in the Utah mountains.

The story involves a poverty-stricken white woman, played by Melissa Leo, and a young Mohawk woman, portrayed by Misty Upham, Blackfeet, who earn money smuggling undocumented immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada into the United States.