NBA Legend Steph Curry's Short Film Wins Award At Sundance

NBA superstar Stephen Curry has won an award at the Sundance Film Festival for co-directing a short film titled The Baddest Speech Writer of All.

The film, directed alongside two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, picked up the Grand Jury Prize during Sundance's short film awards ceremony on Tuesday night.

Steph Curry's Directorial Debut Is A Historical Character Study

The Baddest Speech Writer of All centers around Clarence B. Jones, the infamous speech writer who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. The story explores Jones' contributions to King's legacy and details the personal sacrifices he had to make in order to push the civil rights movement forward.

Jones began his career as a lawyer and became involved with Dr. King during the latter's tax fraud trial in 1960. They remained close friends, and Jones is often credited for leaning pressure on King to use his status for political change.

The Sundance jury released a statement following the awards ceremony, claiming that Curry and Proudfoot's short film "implores us to take action with a message that is timeless and timely," and that it had received the award for "its portrait of a strong willed, hilarious, compassionate man, and the instrumental role he played in kicking ass."

Other Short Films Were Recognized At The Ceremony

While it was The Baddest Speech Writer of All that took home the top prize, several other shorts were recognized by the jury in other categories. Crisis Actor took home the award for U.S. Fiction, Jazz Infernal won the International Fiction category, and Living with a Visionary reigned supreme among animated shorts.

Heidi Zwicker, one of Sundance's senior programmers, expressed that she is "continually inspired by the incredible range of storytelling and style we encounter in the shorts that form our lineup every year — we congratulate these artists and thank them for sharing their distinct visions with us and with our audiences.”