Django is not without it's problems, but some of this isn't correct (upon a quick skim). For example, the Django admin does support filtering and sorting, you just need to indicate this in the admin class.
EDIT: Apparently I was mistaken, as the replies point out. I read the Django book, but I do not recall this chapter. My apologies.
search_fields = ('title',)
"Finally, the search_fields option creates a field that allows text searches. It allows searches by the title field (so you could type Django to show all books with “Django” in the title)."
Why read the documentation or look for examples when you can write a blog post screed and post it on HN?