Park City coverage sponsored by BE KIND REWIND.

[EDITORS NOTE: This is part two of two features that indieWIRE is publishing about the 2007 Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema program. Read part one here.]

I do not know if this stems from filmmakers' growing desire for more money or a general lack of experimental programming, but the best films at Sundance this year have also been some of the most commercial. This is probably one of the reasons there has been such a buying frenzy among distributors. First it was the American features being scooped up, but the latter half of the week proved that the international titles could compete just as well. Buy or no buy, much of the less accessible world cinema such as "Ghosts" and "On a Tightrope" pales in comparison to what can best be described as big, bold crowd pleasers exhibiting some talent smarter than our Hollywood.

Canadian director Ian Iqbal Rashid's ("Touch of Pink") second feature "How She Move" closely resembles a big budget studio picture. In fact, currently one would only have to go to their local Cineplex and see an MTV movie entitled "Stomp the Yard" to approximate the plot of "Move," in which a black teenage girl, Raya, joins a local step-dancing team in order to win the money to send herself back to the private school she used to attend and can no longer afford. The audience is treated to some great dancing, as well as a standard series of trials and tribulations and in the end everything wraps up nicely with a sweet little love story along the way.

The whole affair might seem like your average Nick Cannon vehicle, but "How She Move" has a few crucial differences that I think place it a notch above the average Hollywood movie. Firstly, the characters in "Move" are Caribbean Canadian, not African American, and many of the parental figures are first generation immigrants. Adding this level of complexity to the familial relationships approximates the mother-daughter interplay of a film like Barry Levinson's "Avalon". Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the protagonist is a female.

In 2006 alone, the closest thing to a studio movie targeted towards the African American demographic with a female lead are protagonists in drag such as Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House 2" or Tyler Perry in "Medea's Family Reunion", other than "Dreamgirls", a period piece, and any Queen Latifah affair, in which she is the usually the only African American person appearing on screen. Screenwriter Annmarie Morais' choice to make Raya a female character adds not only a refreshing change of perspective to what is an incredibly stock story, but also an intelligent element of female empowerment and equality that seems to have been lacking in black cinema since "Waiting To Exhale" left theaters back in 1995. In a year when Sundance contains African American content that is either misogynistic ("Black Snake Moan") or racist ("Hounddog"), this little difference goes a long way. And let's not forget that with this standard plot comes all of the fun of a grandiose studio finale, done cheaply but with skill and class.

A scene from Ian Iqbal Rashid's film, "How She Move." Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute.

Along the lines of big budget studio fun, Celluloid Dreams premiered their new children's feature this week, Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow." British music video production team Hammer & Tongs ("A Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy,") really stepped up to the plate with their second feature film, the story of the introverted young artist Will who's life is turned upside down when he befriends Lee Carter, a bully with the dream of making a big budget action movie that approximates the Rambo video he obsessively views over and over in his basement. Things get more complicated when a busload of French foreign exchange students arrives, the most popular of which quickly takes a liking to Will and Lee's film.

It would not be remiss to say that "Son of Rambow" is the perfect kids' film. Extremely reminiscent of Danny Boyle's "Millions" but with more gusto, if that's possible, it captures a fun, childlike and energetic spirit while simultaneously discussing issues of leadership, popularity and, to a surprising degree, religious choice. Like the best of kids' films from the last few years such as "The Incredibles" and "The Iron Giant," "Rambow" doesn't condescend to children in order to reach them, nor does it have a fear of abusing them within its hyper reality. While performing stunts, Will flies fifty feet in the air and narrowly misses getting an arrow through the forehead, but it is kept within the film's fantasy feel, despite the real-world context, and even these stunts have consequences in the end.

The foreign docs began to run a little thin after a few days, leaving only really one of merit. A critical favorite from earlier on, Donal Mac Intyre's "A Very British Gangster" features a plethora of pop songs and enough classy DV cinematography to look like a narrative. "Gangster" is a gritty memoir piece about the crimes, trials and good deeds of Dominic Noonan, aka Lattlay Fottfoy, a homosexual top Mafioso who acts as both an enforcer and a community protector. Perhaps it is the misplaced Up Series style voiceover that makes this film feel so much like a television program that you are exhausted with what was an exhilarating subject up to the sixty minute mark.

Finally, finishing out the international world premieres were two English language narratives, Taika Waititi's "Eagle vs. Shark" and Tom Hooper's "Longford." Waititi, a graduate of the Sundance Institute and a Sundance alum with his shorts "Tama tu" and "Two Cars, One Night," returns with his directorial debut, a "Napoleon Dynamite" infused romantic comedy about the awkward love between a lonely fast food worker, Lily, and a self-involved computer geek, Jarrod. Sweet, saccharine and stiltedly hilarious, "Eagle vs. Shark", though downbeat, hits many of the right notes to reach a wide audience and still feel charmingly small in scale despite the fact that it is co-funded by Miramax. Director Waititi has a promising future, and it may just take the experience of a few more projects for him to find a voice that isn't so reminiscent of previous Sundance projects.

Last and definitely least is "Longford." It comes as no surprise that the highlight of Tom Hooper's biography of the famous British scholar who was widely persecuted for attempting to find forgiveness in his heart for a brutal child murderer is the writing of Peter Morgan. Morgan recently hit two homeruns with "The Queen" and "The Last King of Scotland," and it was a pretty safe bet to say that with Morgan behind the screenplay, this film could compete for audience affections. Unfortunately, despite some nice complimentary performances from Jim Broadbent and Samantha Morton, the directing seems overcome by the writing, as if Hooper wasn't quite sure how to handle Morgan's precious content. The result feels very much like a small screen film which made seeing it in a 13,000 seat theater a disconcerting experience, making a disappointing end to what has otherwise been a fun second half of the week.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Michael Lerman is a freelance writer and programmer for the Woodstock Film Festival and Philadelphia Film Festival.

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