Four filmmakers from Europe, Latin America, the U.S. and Japan were named winners Friday of the 2007 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards.

    Winners get $10,000 and a guarantee from Japanese broadcaster NHK top purchase television broadcast rights to projects once they are completed. The award also provides fillmakers with help from the Sundance Institute staff, who will provide support and assistance on financing and distributing the films.

    The winning directors and their projects are:

    Lucia Cedron, Argentina - "Agnus Dei," The story of a young woman whose grandfather is kidnapped for ransom following Argentina's 2020 economic crisis. After learning of his role in the country's military dictatorship during the '70s, she "must then consider one of the paradoxes of Argentinean society: what can we forgive and how much can we forget?"

    Cedron grew up in France where she produced documentaries, but returned to Buenos Aires in 2002 where she made her first short film, "En Ausencia," winner of the Silver Bear in Berlin in 2003. "Agnus Dei" will be her first feature-length film.

    Dagur Kari, Iceland - "The Good Heart," which tells of Jaques, an ailing middle-aged bar owner, and Lucas, a young homeless man recovering from an attempted suicide, who become friends during a hospital stay. Their relationship is tested when a woman comes between them.

    Kari's feature debut film, "Noi Albinoi" was an international hit in 2003. His second feature, "Dark Horse" (2005), was chosen for "Un Certain Regard" at the Cannes Film Festival. He is also a musician: His Slowblow has released four albums and scored both of his feature films.

    Tomoko Kana, Japan - "Two By The River," about an elderly man who must make a difficult choice about his ailing wife.

    Kana's previous films include "Mardiyem" (2001), a documentary about Indonesian "comfort women," and "Nigai Namida No Daichi Kara (From The Land Of Bitter Tears) (2004), chronicling Chinese victims of discarded Japanese ordnance.

    Caran Hartsfield, U.S. - "Bury Me Standing," the story of how a random act of violence triggers change in a dysfunctional family.

    Hartsfield has made two short films, "Double-Handed" and "Kiss It Up To God." "Bury Me Standing" was developed at the Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation Residency in Paris and workshopped at the Sundance Screenwriter's and Director's Labs, where it earned the IFP Gordon Parks Screenplay Award and The Media Arts Grant.

   

    The winners were selected from 12 finalists by members of an international jury that included: Guillermo Arriaga, Carlos Diegues, Toshio Endo, Bent Hamer, Yoshio Kakeo, Mitsuo Yanagimachi, Pawel Pawlikowski, Brad Silberling, and Rafael Yglesias.