Mike Cahill’s story of an eye researcher who uncovers profound truths has won the $20,000 Sundance Institute’s Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize – making it two for two for the filmmaker.

Cahill, whose Premieres drama debuted last Saturday (18), also receives the Alfred P Sloan Lab Fellowship. Cahill won theSundance 2011 Sloan prize with his first feature, Another Earth.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Sundance Institute for the 11th year in a row and to recognise Mike Cahill’s original and compelling I Origins as the winner of this year’s Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize,” said Doron Weber, vp of programmes at the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.

“With Academy Award-nominated films like this year’s Gravity and Her, I Origins – as well as new scripts we are developing with Sundance Institute Labs such as The Buried Life and Prodigal Summer – demonstrates that not only are science and technology central to understanding, engaging with and dramatising modern life, but they also make for cracking good films that draw large audiences.”