I just received this newsletter from the Sundance Institute and saw that many of the films i watched at Sundance 2008 and 2009 are being shown in theaters. Go to Sundance.org for detailed locations.
For the east coasters who could not make it to Utah for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, this month is your chance to catch these buzz-worthy works at the New Directors/New Films series which runs March 25-April 5 in New York City.
My comments on the films as stated in my Sundance recap last month are copied below:
The Cove: This is by far the most important film at the festival. A must see for anyone on the planet. Anti-dolphin slave trade activist Ric O’Barry, the original trainer of Flipper dophins in the 60’s uncovers the horrifying truth of dolphin killing in Japan and its impact on our eco-system. Q&A on Qik video.
Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire: A powerful film about a 15 year old girl, pregnant for the 2nd time with her father’s child, who is also dealing with physical abuse by her mother and no education. An amazing performance by a new actor Gabourey Sidibe. I look forward to seeing her in future films. Director and Cast Q&A on Qik video.
_________________
Many films from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival are playing nationwide in theaters this month including Christine Jeffs’ Sunshine Cleaning (pictured left), Daniel Barnz’s Phoebe in Wonderland, Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, and Ole Bornedal’s Just Another Love Story. From the 2009 Festival, Greg Mottola’s Adventureland will be premiering in theaters later this month. Several Sundance-supported plays continue their stage runs including, 33 Variations (’04 Theatre Lab) directed by Moises Kaufman and starring Jane Fonda, as well as The Good Negro (Theatre Lab 2006) written by Tracey Scott Wilson and directed by Leisl Tommy.
__________________
Congratulations to the following Sundance artists for their Oscar nominations: Posted on Sundance.org by Bridgette Bates on Feb 20, 2009 at 06:02 pm.
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary:
James Marsh’s Man on Wire
Best Documentary Feature:
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)? 2008 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Competition
Man on Wire? 2008 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Competition; World Cinema Jury Prize Winner: Documentary; World Cinema Audience Award Winner: Documentary
Trouble the Water?2008 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Competition; Grand Jury Prize Winner: Documentary
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Melissa Leo in Frozen River? 2008 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Richard Jenkins in The Visitor? 2008 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:
Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road. Shannon appears in two 2009 Sundance Film Festival films: The Missing Person and The Greatest
Best Original Screenplay:
Frozen River (Written by Courtney Hunt) ? 2008 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Winner
In Bruges (Written by Martin McDonagh) ? 2008 Sundance Film Festival Opening Night Film
Best Animated Short Film:
This Way Up ? 2009 Sundance Film Festival Shorts Program
The Sundance Film Festival was fantastic! Below is a recap of the films I saw in order of preference. The top 5 are “must see” films. At some of the films
I was able to catch a Q&A on video. Those are stored on the right nav of my blog in the Qik video widget. Detailed film descriptions are written in the Sundance Film Festival Guide.
La Mission: Filmed in San Francisco’s Mission district. A story of a single father dealing with the reality that his son is gay. The film deals with a side of the issue that has not yet been told on the big screen. Director and Cast Q&A on Qik video.
The Cove: This is by far the most important film at the festival. A must see for anyone on the planet. Anti-dolphin slave trade activist Ric O’Barry, the original trainer of Flipper dophins in the 60’s uncovers the horrifying truth of dolphin killing in Japan and its impact on our eco-system. Q&A on Qik video.
Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire: A powerful film about a 15 year old girl, pregnant for the 2nd time with her father’s child, who is also dealing with physical abuse by her mother and no education. An amazing performance by a new actor Gabourey Sidibe. I look forward to seeing her in future films. Director and Cast Q&A on Qik video.
The September Issue: A documentary of the 5 months leading up to the release of the September issue of Vogue 2007. Anna Wintour up close. Fantastic!!
The Greatest: The most powerful and haunting opening scene I’ve ever experienced. Principal Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon.
Rough Aunties: A Documentary about a team of women in Durban, South Africa who have dedicated their lives to protecting children from physical and sexual abuse with their non-profit organization Bobbi Bear. It is amazing to watch what a team of 10 women can do for a community. A great reminder that a few focused, passionate individuals can significantly impact change.
Afghan Star: The American Idol of Afghanistan with over 1/3 of the country watching it. This story follows 4 contestants of which 2 are women - a first - that are competing for the #1 spot. For many of the citizens this represents the first encounter with any kind of democratic process. It also pushes the limits of what women can do, and puts 2 of them under government protection due to the death threats they are getting.
Helen: A powerful look at suicidal depression and the impact on the family. Compassionately told, raises awareness about an issue kept silent by many families. Principal Cast: Ashley Judd.
Motherhood: I missed the premier, and Jodie Foster. Need i say more? Okay, it was entertaining, worth a watch, a day in the life of a mom in NYC. Director Q&A on Qik video.
In the Loop: Some great one liners, was a festival favorite for many.
Dare: A coming of age story for three teens. Entertaining. Gay subplot.
500 Days of Summer: A decent date flick.
Humpday: Two men find themselves in a mutual dare after a wild night of partying: to enter an amateur porn contest with a boundary breaking porn of two straight men having sex with each other for the first time and the issues around the event. I was surprised by how well they dealt with the topic, no gay bashing existed in this film. It was cleverly done.
Cliente - A French Gigolo: An oddly empowering film for women. As described in the review, “part bedroom farce, class melodrama and feminist foray…” Enjoyable.
An Education: Set in London 1961, a story of a young girls journey to adulthood. Carey Mulligan (also in The Greatest) carries this movie with her performance as Jenny. I hope to see more of her in the coming years.
World’s Greatest Dad: This film showed the worst side of every character, intentionally. Robin Williams plays the father of a troubled teen, the story really starts after the boys death. I’m not sure that i recommend this movie, though many believe it is one of Robin Williams strongest performances.
Victoria Day: Seen this storyline to often. Live review on the streets of Park City on Qik video.
Shrink: Typical predictable storyline around Hollywood insiders and their sad lives. I would have walked out if i wasn’t sitting in the middle of the row with all the cast members behind me. Principal Cast: Kevin Spacey
Manure: Interesting color, all shades of brown, as relates to the movie theme. An odd theme with clever dialog. Principal Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Tea Leoni and Kyle Maclachlan.
The Vicious Kind: I walked out.
Video Links from Q&A’s:
Push: Director Q&A at Sundance Film Festival 2009
Push: Based on the novel by Saphire. Director: Lee Daniels. Cast Gabourey Sidibe, Paula Patton, MoNique, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz
I walked into the Queer Cafe on Main Street and found a great discussion happening upstairs with the cast and crew of La Mission. La Mission is a film dealing with homophobia in minority communities.
La Mission - Sundance Film Festival
Directed and written by Peter Bratt and staring his brother Benjamin Bratt along with Erika Alexander, Jeremy Ray Valdez and Jesse BorregoI. Benjamin was sharing how difficult it was to get any funding for the film even with his connections - the reason given was, “this film has already been done.” The reality is that once a gay film has been done by mainstream white america, its difficult to get funding for other projects. Peter Bratt is focusing his film making on raising awareness about stories told with people of color as the primary characters.
The film premiered Monday, January 19. I hope to see the film tomorrow.
Wordpress app working fine on new iPhone. On plane, so time to pull out movie guide and get to work on my tentative movie schedule. Forgot my computer powercord, need to buy one in slc. Turning phone off for the flight now. The 4am wakeup call, not so welcome, but nothing a little coffee can’t solve!
I’ve got 48 hours until we fly from Oakland to Salt Lake City, then the 45 minute bus ride to Park City.
This year I’ll be sharing my thoughts with friends on the movies via my blog. I’ve got most of the kinks worked out on how on how I’ll be doing this: blogging via iBlogger on the iPhone to lafpdl.com which will then notify my friends on Twitter as each post is published. Same will be true for Qik video that i take.
Sundance Film Festival 2009
People keep asking if I’ve decided on the movies I’ll be watching. Well, it doesn’t usually get planned out in that way. The idea is to Park City, talk to people, get the buzz on what’s hot, go to a few cafe’s to hear the conversations and then decide what to see the following day - or in some cases, the following hour.
I’m fortunate in that I have purchased the Express Pass allowing me to walk into any movie at anytime. This is how I am able to decide last minute which movies i want to see. It’s the most stress free way of attending the festival.
A typical day consists of waking up at 7:00 am, picking up the daily Sundance news, talking to a few folks about the movies they saw the day before while in line waiting for coffee at the Java Cow and then heading to my first film at 8:30 am. This similar pause-check-go process continues for 5-6 movies throughout the day until midnight. The only constant for me is to attend the premiers at the Eccles Theater each night.
We try to fit one meal each day, but usually just carry water and light snacks to get us by since there isn’t much time between films. Every once in awhile we will attend a midnight showing of some completely off the wall movie categorized as “Park City after midnight” films, but on most occasions we go home at midnight to get some rest for the next day.
Sidenote: A few of those midnight shows we have seen in the past that were both disturbing and brilliant were
Zoo, directed by Roberson Devor
Teeth, written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein
Funny Games, Michael Haneke?s American remake of the film
I LOVE Sundance - Where else are you going to walk down the street to get coffee and see Donny Osmond filming a music video at 7:00 am on a Tuesday!
Donny Osmond
For now, i’ll continue combing through the Sundance Film Guide, getting all the technology lined up and packing my bags! -d
[Update from Matt: We just finished our last task here at Sundance, about 24 hours after we started our first task. It was a highly rewarding (although frequently embarrassing; making rooster crows in the morning topped it off) experience, a great insight into how this festival works, and the gusto with which people attend movies.
And Ashton Kutcher challenged us with live, often silly antics, that we captured on video — including creating a 2.5 minute performance skit (Shira did an amazing job here, it’s worth seeing below) which we were then challenged to replay to someone on our phone while he was sitting in an igloo that I built from the snow here. We were also told to then upload it to YouTube, thus the grainy video below.
*****
This has been an interesting 24 hours watching Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Rose and Matt Marshall on qik and twitter at Sundance Film Festiva.
Matt wrote on venturebeat, “What?s it all for? For several years music and film producers have wrestled with tech upstarts like Napster and giants like Apple over prickly things like copyright.
But content producers ? Ashton Kutcher, for example ? are finally realizing the rules have changed for good, that copyright is simply harder to protect in the age of the Web, and that rather than fight it, it?s time to dive in and experiment with new forms of technology and use it to enliven their craft.”
I’ve been following on
http://www.24hoursatsundance.com/
http://www.venturebeat.com
http://www.qik.com/mattandshira.
The lag time is still an issue but did get better over the day. I believe they finish around 9am this morning. I
I’ve been seeing Live video of people getting their morning coffee, so things should start picking up again soon.
UPDATE: The stream was perfect! Matt and Shira finished the challenge and i think won the competition! Great job guys! We are cheering for you!
I’m hoping to get hooked up with Qik today and will start streaming Tuesday night from my iPhone.
My second favorite time of the year is fast approaching: the Sundance film festival. It’s a time when Rudi and I have time to be together doing something completely selfish. There ate no kids, no commitments, no expectations from anyone at all.
I’m a little annoyed that it’s in Utah, but I’ve got plenty of buttons and t-shirts with “say no to H8″ to keep remind people of my positioN on the funding done by the Mormons on prop 8 in california.
This is my first post from my iPhone trying to get ready to post at sundance, let’s hope this one works!
0 Comment » 
