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Broadway veterans Helen Hunt and William H. Macy and the cast of the film The Surrogate won the Special Jury prize for ensemble acting at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The movie, written and directed by Ben Lewin, also won the Audience Award for Best Film.

The film, based on a true story, tells the story of Mark O'Brien (played by Oscar nominee John Hawkes), a 36-year-old man in an iron lung who decides to lose his virginity and contacts a professional sex surrogate to help him.

Among the many other films honored at the festival were Beasts of the Southern Wild, The House I Live In, Love Free or Die, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Violetta Went to Heaven, Valley of Saints, The Black Balloon, Can, and Searching for Sugar Man.