Presenting Partner
Signature Partners
![](https://d13jj08vfqimqg.cloudfront.net/assets/sponsors/att-0be358885b1a21f32c8fc8bce68cbcd899d09f70cab440ead5f7a34b1cc4e76d.png)
![](https://d13jj08vfqimqg.cloudfront.net/assets/sponsors/audible-087a4006f933842feedb2da1c2e885187601f99b4a17e98f26fe9e98d991ff97.png)
![](https://d13jj08vfqimqg.cloudfront.net/assets/sponsors/chanel-68ee1e90f2a405d080d70eb8e7313114dd44a1dd7521cb1508af50d684d0aa0a.png)
![](https://d13jj08vfqimqg.cloudfront.net/assets/sponsors/citi-64a4dcf12514e1d6cad90a5c316f579a5d2dd9e2abc30afc625bce29dba3d00d.png)
![](https://d13jj08vfqimqg.cloudfront.net/assets/sponsors/indeed-531fd63937ae1f3d9524b87e0ace321b259c9d3e3d934f559ef14ae8ca83f9c1.png)
The 2011 winner is Bombay Beach.
The rusting relic of a failed 1960s development boom, the Salton Sea is a barren Californian landscape often seen as a symbol of the failure of the American Dream. First-time director Alma Har'el revisits this poetically fruitful terrain in her distinctive documentary Bombay Beach, and finds there a motley cast including a bipolar seven-year-old, a lovelorn high school football star, and an octogenarian poet-prophet. Together they make up a triptych of American manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea's land of thwarted opportunity.
True to her roots as a photographer, video artist, and music video director, Har'el crafts here an adamantly atypical and artistically innovative film—a dreamlike poem that sets the personal stories of these distinctive yet familiar characters to a stylized amalgam of observational documentary and choreographed dance, with music by Beirut and Bob Dylan, all cast against the atmospheric scenery of the titular ghost town. The result is a moving and surreal documentary experience—an evocative, symbolic portrait of rural America and its inhabitants.