Sundance Film Festival

James C. Strouse, Grace is Gone

GRACE IS GONE. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Certain films arrive at Sundance with a special type of anticipation, whether it’s due to star presence, subject matter, timeliness, or some ineffable quality that is the stuff of buzz. At Sundance 2007, Grace is Gone is one of those films. The directorial debut of James C. Strouse, who wrote Lonesome Jim (the Steve Buscemi-directed film screened at Sundance in 2005), the film tells the heart-wrenching story of a father, played by John Cusack, who must find a way to tell his children that their mother has […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 20, 2007
Cherien Dabis, Make a Wish

MAKE A WISH. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Supported by numerous prestigious grants — including the Jerome Foundation’s New York City Media Arts Grant, the New York State Council on the Art’s Electronic Media and Film Distribution Grant, and National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project Seed Grant — Itmanna (Make a Wish), the most recent short film by writer/director, Cherien Dabis, will quickly follow its Sundance bow with screenings at Berlin and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival. A former media activist and public relations specialist in Washington D.C., Dabis is the daughter of Palestinian/Jordanian immigrants, […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 20, 2007
Fellipe Barbosa, Salt Kiss

SALT KISS. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Salt Kiss, the second short film by writer/director Fellipe Barbosa to screen at Sundance (following last year’s La Muerte Es Pequena), has none of the tropes commonly associated—by Americans—with “Latin American” cinema. That means no knife-fights, gambling, gang violence, or overt poverty. Yet Salt Kiss is absolutely a Latin American film—Brazilian, to be exact—because its creator told a film straight from his heart, and yes, he happens to be from Brazil. In truth, Salt Kiss shares much more with two fine American independent films released in recent years—Sideways […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
Hope Dickson Leach, The Dawn Chorus

THE DAWN CHORUS. This article is part of Filmmaker‘s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Hope Dickson Leach’s short film, The Dawn Chorus, tells the story of two siblings who annually reenact—with other survivors—the plane crash that killed their parents. An MFA thesis film for Columbia University’s Film program (where Hope graduated with honors), The Dawn Chorus explores the process of grieving and, hopefully healing. A former assistant to Todd Solondz, Hope’s short films have played at festivals around the world, from London and Edinburgh to Boston and Austin. The Dawn Chorus screens in Shorts Program 1, and the film’s path to […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
Nanobah Becker, Conversion

CONVERSION. This article is part of Filmmaker‘s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Conversion, the ambitious second short film by Nanobah Becker, clocks in at only nine minutes, and is described simply tantalizingly as: “Christian missionaries make a catastrophic visit to a Navajo family.” Becker’s first short, Flat, has screened in festivals internationally, and she is a recipient of a 2005 Sundance Institute Ford Fellowship and a 2006 Media Arts Fellowship for her feature screenplay, Full. Conversion will play in Shorts Program V at Sundance. Can you say a little bit about your background? Where you’re from? Age? Education? Film experience prior […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
Ian Olds, Bomb

BOMB. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. It isn’t easy to glean a sense of Ian Olds’ identity from his films — they’re too diverse, too global. From Occupation: Dreamland (short-listed for an Academy Award), a breathtaking documentary that avoids simple political interpretation by opting to tell the story of the Iraq War from the perspective of the entire city of Fallujah — including both native Iraqis and U.S. troops — to Bomb, his most recent film, which explores teenage heartache against the backdrop of a decrepit bombing range and junkie malaise, Olds seems to be […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
Lilah Vanderburgh, Bitch

BITCH. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Bitch, the kinetic, black-and-white, Harold Lloyd-meets-Jello Biafra love story, is one of the most visually sophisticated and stylized films to emerge from that Sundance short film-factory, Columbia University’s MFA Film Program (eight shorts screening at the festival this year!). The film’s director, Lilah Vanderburgh, is obsessed with skater culture, punk-rock, underground comics, and displays the hip film literacy of another director with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. (Is it taboo to compare a young director to Tarantino? Who cares — in this case, it’s deserved). This film will […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES JUNE LAB PROJECTS

Indiewire has posted the writers and directors participating in the Sundance June Labs. Here’s the list and the descriptions of the projects: “A Breath Away”/Kit Hui (writer/director), U.S.A./ChinaAs a typhoon approaches Hong Kong, the residents of a high-rise apartment explore their need for human connection, family, and cultural identity in their increasingly isolated worlds.Born and raised in Hong Kong, Kit Hui immigrated to the United States at age 16. She received her MFA from Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. Her short film “Missing” screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and she was recently […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2006
FEVER DREAMS

Redford on this year’s Sundance on Yahoo: “It’s gotten to the point now — almost to a breaking point — where there’s a fever that has taken over the festival that creates an enormous amount of chaos and excitement and tension,” the 68-year-old actor said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It’s gotten a little bit harder on me… “The festival that we do is the same one as we did the first year,” he said. “We program it exactly the same every year, which is for new voices and more experimental films.” The difference now, Redford said, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 23, 2006
THE HARD TRUTH

For those attempting to parse the business climate at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, today’s piece by David Halbfinger in the New York Times is pretty on the money. Also, I should note that I was a trifle embarassed to have been called by Ann Thompson one of the passionate bloggers who would be reporting from Sundance and then not to have written anything. Well, I was there more in producer mode this year rather than daily reporting mode, but I did catch a bunch of films I’ll be writing about during the year. And, I am heading to Rotterdam […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2006

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