Jack Reynor, Irish star of Gerard Barrett’s Glassland, has won the special jury prize for acting at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Barrett’s searing film, featuring Reynor as a young man coping with an alcoholic mother in Tallaght, had already received excellent reviews following its US premiere earlier in the week. “The tears in Glassland catch you unawares. This is not your run-of-the-mill weepy, nor your archly-crafted Oscar bait,” The Guardian wrote.

Last summer, Glassland, Mr Barrett’s second feature, shared Best Irish Film with Terry McMahon’s Patrick’s Day at the Galway Film Fleadh. After delivering a stunning lead performance in Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did in 2012, Dublin-based Reynor has gone on to star in such Hollywood productions as Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Long associated with founding father Robert Redford, the Sundance Film Festival is the most important event for independent film in the calendar. Two of the current nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars, Whiplash and Boyhood, premiered as last year’s event. Reynor’s win is a very important boost for Barrett’s low-budget film.

It was a strong week for Irish film. John Crowley’s Brooklyn, which was playing out of competition, received arguably the best reviews of the festival before being acquired by Fox Searchlight for US distribution. Saoirse Ronan stars as a young woman who, after emigrating to New York City in the 1950s, becomes torn between the old country and her new home.

Attracting $9 million from Fox following a bidding war, Brooklyn has already been mentioned as a key player in the 2016 Oscars. “Ronan, who was previously nominated for 2007’s Atonement, will almost certainly be back at the ceremony next year,” the leading trade publication Variety told its readers.

Grand Jury Prize

The US Grand Jury Prize went to the moving drama Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film concerns a pair of film fanatics who make friends with a teenage girl who has terminal cancer. Like Whiplash before it, the film also won the audience prize and is now happily burdened with much expectation.

There was further success for domestic talent in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. The winning film, an avant-garde western called Slow West starring Kerryman Michael Fassbender, was produced by the actor and features highly praised cinematography by Irish wizard Robbie Ryan. Sadly, such are the politics of awards season, few of these films will encounter paying audiences before next autumn.