Sundance.org Video Audience Reaches One Million Downloads

The Sundance Institute announced that worldwide audiences have downloaded over one million videos, breaking previous records according to the organization. Online visitors have downloaded a range of free programs from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, including video highlights of festival happenings, filmmaker interviews and 50 short films that were screened in festival competition. The 2006 Sundance Film Festival, which took place this year from January 19 to 29, is the only major film fest to premiere short films on the web within hours of their premieres in theatres in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. The number of video hits in 2006 surpassed the 700,000 downloads from the site in 2005 over the six month period during which the video remain on the web. The 2006 site reached the million download milestone 35 days after debuting short films and original content when the festival opened on January 19. According to Sundance, the top ten downloads so far are: "Gopher Broke" by Jeff Flowler and Tim Miller; "Fumi and the Badluck Left Foot" by David Chai; "Hahaha America" by Jon Daniel Ligon; "Fourteen" by Nicole Barnette; "A Half Man" by Firas Momani; Sundance '06 shorts competition winner "Bug Crush" by Carter Smith; "Divorce Lemonade" by Justin Hayward; "The Tribe" by Tiffany Shlain; "You Turned Back and Held My Hand" by Gabriela Tollman; and "Before Dawn" by Balint Kenyeres. For more information, visit their website. [Brian Brooks]