Gyorgy Palfi's Taxidermia, Miranda July's Me And You And Everyone We Know and Andrucha Waddington's House Of Sand have won the 2004 Sundance/NHK InternationalFilm-makers Awards.

Each winner will receive$10,000 and a guarantee from Japanese public broadcaster NHK to buy theJapanese television rights upon completion of the project, as well asyear-round financing and distributing support from Sundance staff. The winnerswill attend the Sundance awards ceremony.

Theannual award was created in 1996 to support new voices in international cinemawith their next projects and is presented to emerging directors from the fourglobal regions of Europe, USA, Latin America and Japan.

The international jury,whose members included Miguel Arteta, Toshio Endo, Keith Gordon and NicoleHolofcener, did not select a winner from Japan, although Kosuke Hosokaimreceived an honourable mention for Tepid Love.

The Hungarian film-makerPalfi won several awards for his debut feature Hukkle, which Hungary submitted as its Oscar contender lastyear. His next film, Taxidermia,weaves together the story of three generations of men in a Hungarian family.

Waddington previouslydirected the award-winning Me You Them (Eu Tu Eles), Brazil'sforeign film Oscar entry in 2001. House Of Sand is a portrait of a woman spanning severalgenerations.

US director July is anestablished multimedia performance artist and published author. Me And YouAnd Everyone We Know deals withchildren and adults with impossible desires.

Previous recipients of theSundance/NHK prize include Walter Salles for Central Station and Chris Eyre forSmoke Signals. Both have films in this year's Premiere section of the SundanceFilm Festival

Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries was snapped up on Saturday by Focus Features forNorth American distribution ollowing its world premiere at Sundance. The Spanish-languagetitle now looks set to receive its international premiere at the Cannes FilmFestival in May - and not at next month's Berlinale, as originally earmarked.