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 November 19, 2008 "Mary and Max" to Open 2009 Sundance Film Festival
The world premiere of "Mary and Max," a clay animation freature from Academy Award-winning short creators Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs will kick off the 25th Sundance Film Festival on January 15th in Park City, Utah. The feature stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette with narration by Barry Humphries. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City ] November 10, 2008 PARK CITY '09 | In the Wake of Prop 8, Film Community & Fest Organizers Defend Sundance Amidst Talk of Boycott
With about a week to go before programmers internally lock the lineup for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, organizers are carefully navigating calls for a boycott of the annual event. Talk of a boycott emerged via blogs last week, including Huffington Post and AmericaBlog, in the wake of anger and frustration over the passage of California ballot Proposition 8 halting same sex marriages in the state. Members of the indie film community immediately came to the festival's defense today, including filmmmaker Allison Anders ("Mi Vida Loca," "Gas, Food Lodging"), who said, "To boycott the festival which has been the home for all diverse voices to be presented on the screen is dangerously backward thinking." [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 21 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, On The Scene, Park City ] October 1, 2008 Sundance Halts Online Fest Initiative; Short Filmmakers Kept in the Dark by Aggregator Mediastile
The Sundance Film Festival has ended its relationship with new media aggregator Mediastile Inc. after the company repeatedly failed to send royalty payments and traffic reports to Sundance directors who screened films online via iTunes, Netflix and XBox LIVE. Over the weekend, Sundance organizers e-mailed filmmakers to confirm the shift, leaving them to resolve their individual situations with Mediastile, which controls digital rights to their work. The decision affects at least 45 filmmakers who had opted to put their work online after also being accepted to screen at Sundance this year, as well as another crop from the 2007 festival. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City, Shorts ] January 28, 2008PARK CITY '08 | Catching Up: 100+ Dispatches, Buzz, Photos, Notebooks, Reviews, and Interviews From Sundance '08
The 2008 Sundance Film Festival came to a close on Sunday night in Park City, UT and indieWIRE is wrapping up its coverage this week. Our dispatches, reviews, interviews, news, photos and buzz from Park City '07 included more than 100 articles and buzz items about Sundance and Slamdance 2008, iPOP photos and feature articles. We invite you to check out indieWIRE's coverage from Park City. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 27, 2008 PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | "Frozen River" and "Trouble The Water" Win Top Prizes at Sundance '08, "Man On Wire" Wins World Doc Jury and Audience Awards
Courtney Hunt's "Frozen River" won the dramatic grand jury prize and Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's "Trouble The Water" won the documentary grand jury prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival tonight. The dramatic audience award went to Jonathan Levine's "The Wackness," while the documentary audience award went to Josh Tickell's "Fields of Fuel." In the world cinema documentary competition, James Marsh's "Man on Wire" won both the grand jury prize and the audience award, while the world cinema dramatic jury prize went to Jens Jonsson's "King of Ping Pong" ("Ping Pongkingen") and the dramatic audience award went to Amin Matalqa's "Captain Abu Raed." [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 2 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 25, 2008 PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | Name Actors Not Needed: "Baghead," "Ballast," "Momma's Man" Shine in Park City
Back in 2005 at the Sundance Film Festival, The Duplass Brothers' "The Puffy Chair" debuted rather quietly here in Park City. At the time, the low-budget indie reminded many of the sort of sleeper that specialty companies would have quickly plucked from the festival a few years earlier, yet it took some 18 months before the film would eventually make it to theaters. This year, things seem different. At a Sundance Film Festival in which buyers and audiences alike are seemingly rejecting a number of big-budget, star-driven films made outside the studio system, Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass' latest low-budget comedy, "Baghead" was quickly acquired for North American distribution just days after its Park City premiere. Competing against a number of other companies, Sony Classics swifty secured a deal for the film. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 2 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 24, 2008 PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | Queer Cinema Then and Now at Sundance '08
A rather staggering forty-four films with either GLBT themes or a GLBT director are screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival, including new works from directors Tom Kalin ("Savage Grace"), Isaac Julien's "Derek"), Bruce LaBruce ("Otto; Or Up With Dead People"), producer Christine Vachon, as well as a screening of Gregg Araki's remastered "The Living End." The films inspired a reunion of sorts at this year's festival, anchored on Saturday night with a dinner celebrating the group of queer films. In remarks during dinner B. Ruby Rich, who coined the term "New Queer Cinema" at a Sundance panel in 1992, emotionally proclaimed the room as "filled with history." [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City, Queer Cinema ]  PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | Immigration and Water Make a Sundance Splash
Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck returned this week to the very same podium at the Sundance Film Festival's Racquet Club Theater where two years ago they first introduced their acclaimed "Half Nelson." Boden and Fleck's latest film, "Sugar," which had its world premiere Monday at the venue, is the noble immigrant story of Miguel Santos, played by Algenis Perez Soto, an aspiring Dominican baseball player who hopes to succeed in the major leagues in the U.S. At 19, he receives a break, winning a place in the minor leagues with a team in Iowa. But, after initial success, his pitching begins to falter and he starts to question his life's ambition. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 22, 2008 PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | Buying Heats Up At Sundance; 3 Films Quickly Nabbed As Insiders Ponder The Market
Way back in October, sellers began speculating that with the looming Writer's Guild strike, this year's Sundance Film Festival would see booming business. For months, buyers, sellers, and journalists set the stage: narrative films would catch fire as the strike continued and docs would face tough times in the wake of a bad year at the box office. At Sundance Film Festival industry parties on Monday, a number of buyers and sellers alike seemed genuinely surprised that Sundance '08 hasn't followed the approved script and a narrower roster of narrative films than expected were in play by the festival's midpoint. But, late Monday, many seemed confident that deals would start to happen and sure enough today, three new narrative features that screened for the first time on Monday were quickly snapped up in a day that saw about $18 million in deals. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 20, 2008 PARK CITY '08 DISPATCH | Docs Continue to Stir Sundance: "Teen," "Water," "I.O.U.S.A."
There's no question that documentaries have dominated the first weekend of the Sundance Film Festival; critically and business-wise, docs seem to be stirring the most talk. "No fiction films have sold yet?" one leading independent film producer emailed indieWIRE this morning, "That is crazy." While later, the head of a leading distribution outlet -- chatting with iW -- noted that documentaries and international narrative films have been the best of Sundance so far, while American dramatic features are lagging behind. Insiders are watching to see if the tide turns for narrative features in the dramatic competition and Spectrum sections of Sundance. Early reviews of films such as Neil Abramson's "American Son" and Jonathan Levine's "The Wackness", as well as good buzz for films such as Lance Hammer's "Ballast", indicate there may be hope for American narrative features at the festival. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 19, 2008 PARK CITY '08 | Sundance Opening Weekend: Docs in Focus - "Polanski," "Secrecy," "The Recruiter"
Any concern about the potential for documentaries at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival seems to be dissipating in the early days of the event. Doc deals have dominated industry talk (so far), with a number of other pacts announced and also pending. Zeitgeist nabbed Yung Chang's "Up The Yanghtze" and HBO scored rights to Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' "The Black List," while The Weinstein Company just secured a pact for international rights to Marina Zenovich's "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," with a domestic deal expected soon and late today [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 17, 2008 PARK CITY '08 | Redford Talking Change as Sundance Opens; Fest Touts New Frontier
Exactly one year before the inauguration of a new U.S. president, Democratic candidates have been talking a lot about the word 'change' in their primary campaigns. Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford immediately picked up on the term in Thursday's opening remarks during a welcome press conference that kicked off the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. "The word 'change' has become big in this past year," Redford noted. "One of the things that Sundance was structured to do is to adapt and to change, we are adaptable in that sense," he continued, "We adapt to the change that comes from the filmmakers themselves as they document the world around them, as the world itself changes." [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ]  PARK CITY '08 | Swagdance, Brand Dance, and the Struggle to Focus on Film
"Sundance is weird," Britney Spears infamously quipped five years ago in Park City, quoted by the New York Post's Page Six. "The movies are weird - you actually have to think about them when you watch them." The most surprising part of that moment was the fact that the tabloid and Spears were actually in Park City to cross paths and create such a perfect illustration of the Sundance Film Festival. Recent events will prevent Britney from a trip to Park City this year, but Paris Hilton will again be in town for the festival, likely trailed by a host of paparazzi and gossip hounds. Like Paris, many of the famous festival crashers who travel to Park City without a film in the festival won't be confronted with Britney's dilemma of making sense of the movies, since they'll likely spend most of their time lounging at sponsored suites and swag shopping at gifting houses, constantly captured by one of the many WireImage photographers. A few many even sneak into indieWIRE's iPOP section now and again. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] January 15, 2008PARK CITY '08 | Buzzing About The Buzz and Managing The Chattering Class as Sundance Approaches
The Sundance Film Festival, which opens Thursday, is where the new year's buzz starts for independent and specialty movies hoping to become arthouse hits. Last year's Sundance worked for "Waitress," "Once," "No End in Sight," "The Savages" among others, but how does the buzz get started at Sundance? Or, more to the point, how do some films get on festgoers' short list of must-see titles even before the event begins? Such advance buzz can be a leg up for those films since, according to Sundance's press office, 121 feature-length entries are being shown this year. With 87 being world premieres, 14 North American premieres and 12 U.S. premieres, most are unknown quantities. Further, there are 55 first-time filmmakers, including 32 in competition. And as reported yesterday in indieWIRE, there are some 100 films on the market for potential U.S. distribution. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] December 5, 2007PARK CITY '08 | Touting Strongest Shorts Slate Yet, Sundance Unveils 83 Film Roster
The roster of 83 short films that will screen at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival (January 17 - 27) were chosen from a record 5,100 entries, festival organizers noted on Wednesday. That marks a 15% jump in submissions over last year. Sundance organizers are touting a roster that they say is the festival's strongest yet. Talking with indieWIRE today, Sundance senior programmer Trevor Groth said that taken as a whole, the shorts seem to have taken "an evolutionary leap forward" this year, with even the work coming from film schools havin a, "maturity that I had not seen before." He added that Sundance's international entries are stronger than ever. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City ]  PARK CITY '08 | Slamdance Reveals Features Slate
The 2008 Slamdance Film Festival has announced the feature film slate for its 14th fest, taking place in Park City, Utah January 17-25. The event will open with "Real Time", written and directed by Randall Cole and starring Randy Quaid and Jay Baruchel. The fest described "Real Time" as a "comedic drama about a compulsive gambler who is given one hour to live by the hitman hired to kill him". Additionally, they announced a schedule of screenings and events, including Twilight Screenings (the fest's late night series); writing competitions for both screenplays and teleplays; the Anarchy Online Short Film Competition; Fireside Chats with notables from the independent film community; a $99 Special short film production project; a best-of games presentation; and the Horror Screenplay Competition, in which the winning script is guaranteed to be produced as a feature film. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City ] November 29, 2007 PARK CITY '08 | From Michel Gondry to Morgan Spurlock: Sundance's Non-Competitive Titles Announced
New films from Michel Gondry, Boaz Yakin, Mark Pellington, Brad Anderson, and Barry Levinson fill out Sundance's star-studded Premieres section, which considerably ups the Park City glitz factor. Today's announcement of Sundance's entire non-competitive feature lineup (listed below) includes films in the Premieres, Spectrum, Park City at Midnight and New Frontier section, bringing the complete feature lineup to 121 titles. Celebrity casts this year include Jack Black, Charlize Theron, Robert DeNiro, Tom Hanks, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Sean Penn, just to name a few. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City ] November 28, 2007PARK CITY '08 | First Timers, Personal Films Dominate Sundance' 08 Slate; Fest Unveils Competition Rosters
While the dramatic competition lineup for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival includes a few familiar names, such as the return to Park City by "Half Nelson" filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden or the new film from "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" director Jonathan Levine, and even an American feature by "Rain" director Christine Jeffs, the roster of American independent features is dominated by first timers. There are 51 first time filmmakers among the lineup of 121 features that will screen at Sundance this year, running January 17 - 27, 2008, in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. "It's surprising the number of things that just popped out of nowhere," Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore told indieWIRE this afternoon. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 1 comments ] [ filed under Lead Story, Lineups, Park City ] November 19, 2007 PARK CITY '08 | McDonagh's "In Bruges" to Open 2008 Sundance Film Festival
Playwright Martin McDonagh's first feature, "In Bruges" will open the 2008 Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2008 in Park City, UT. The festival, set to unveil its complete feature film lineup next week, will present 120 features and 80 shorts during the annual event, which will run through January 27th in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. McDonagh's film, described as a "twisted tale of two London hit men ordered to take a forced vacation in Bruges, Belgium", stars Ralph Fiennes, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. In the words of a Sundance announcement, "their subsequent time in exile goes awry." [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Park City ] January 29, 2007 PARK CITY '07 | Catching Up: 90+ Articles About Sundance '07 & Ten Video Episodes
The 2007 Sundance Film Festival came to a close on Sunday night in Park City, UT and indieWIRE is wrapping up its reporting early this week. Our coverage of Park City '07 includes more than 90 articles about Sundance and Slamdance 2007, featuring news, buzz, reviews, interviews, video episodes, iPOP photos and feature articles. We invite you to check out indieWIRE's coverage from Park City. [ read more in On The Scene ] [ 0 comments ] [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, Park City ] Older Entries from Park CityJanuary 27, 2007 January 27, 2007 January 26, 2007 January 25, 2007 January 25, 2007 January 24, 2007 January 24, 2007 January 22, 2007 January 21, 2007 January 20, 2007 January 20, 2007 January 18, 2007 January 17, 2007 December 6, 2006 December 5, 2006 November 30, 2006 November 29, 2006 November 16, 2006 February 2, 2006 January 29, 2006 January 29, 2006 January 28, 2006 January 28, 2006 January 28, 2006 January 28, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 26, 2006 January 26, 2006 January 25, 2006 January 25, 2006 January 25, 2006 January 24, 2006 January 24, 2006 January 24, 2006 January 23, 2006 January 23, 2006 January 23, 2006 January 23, 2006 January 22, 2006 January 22, 2006 January 22, 2006 January 21, 2006 January 21, 2006 January 21, 2006 January 20, 2006 January 20, 2006 January 19, 2006 January 19, 2006 January 19, 2006 January 5, 2006 December 7, 2005 December 5, 2005 December 1, 2005 November 30, 2005 November 28, 2005 November 28, 2005 October 16, 2005 | |
