Uncategorized Wesleyan

Wes grad wins grand jury prize for U.S. drama at Sundance

Wesleying reports that Benh Zeitlin ’04 took home the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic category for his film Beasts of the Southern Wild. Zeitlin was previously honored at the Slamdance Film Festival for his animated senior thesis, Egg.

For those of you that don’t know, there is a name for Wesleyan’s powerful network of alumni working in film– the “Wesleyan Mafia.” The most well-known of the mafia members are Michael Bay, of Armageddon and Transformers fame, and Paul Weitz–the cowriter and director of American Pie.

Perhaps the rising Zeitlin will take his place among the notorious.

Here the director talks about his film, in which the lines of reality and unreality become blurred through the eyes of a young girl living on the unpredictable Louisiana delta.