Sundance Film Festival: An Analysis & My Most Anticipated Films

The Sundance Film Festival does odd things. For one thing, if feature length movies (narrative or documentary, it makes no difference) have publicly screened before, anywhere, at any place, they are not eligible for submission. What this does is ensure that every screening at Sundance is a world premiere, but what it also does is allow only the small fraction of movie viewers attending the festival to view these movies as they are released; the rest of us have to cross our fingers and wait until (if ever) the films are picked up by a major distributing organization. And, as in the case of many sort films (which can not have been released on DVD or VHS prior to their entry), some films are left on the proverbial cutting room floor. Having had their fifteen minutes of fame, they never gain a greater audience than at Sundance and so either fade to black and disappear or act as starting boards for aspiring directors and filmmakers to gain industry attention. (Of course, Sundance has valiantly remedied this problem by forging an alliance with iTunes, which allows movie fans to download most of these shorts online for relatively cheap prices--check out http://festival.sundance.org/-- and allows filmmakers to reach a radically larger audience than could be reached by handing out paper flyers at the Festival. This is another odd thing Sundance has done. Notice I never equated an "odd thing" with a "bad thing"...)

However, the fact remains that Sundance ensures that all of its features be of the "never-before-seen" variety, thus insuring that only the film fans, filmmakers, industry types, and journalists (ah...journalists!...huh...) attending the festival get a peek at these films as they are screened to an audience for the very first time. "Why?" might you ask. "Why are the premieres of these often remarkable new movies hoarded by Sundance (and, of course, most other high profile film festivals). "Why are they not screened at the filmmaker's pleasure and then entered into the competition?" The answer is a simple one, and, if you think hard about, not an entirely unwelcome one. The Sundance Film Festival (as well as Cannes and many, many other similar festivals) does not exist to serve the interests of the average movie goer. They exist for the army of critics and journalists that attend their screenings. Sundance, whether intentionally or not, has created the ultimate buzz machine, allowing independent films (albeit often high budget with all-star casts) to gain reviews, press exposure, and audience interest before even being released to the general public. And that, above any exorbitant budget, above any famous actor, is the great equalizer, the bridging of the divide between big budget Hollywood cinema and big-budget independent cinema. And, with this reality firmly in place, how long before they become one and the same?

Okay, I guess this is the second half of this blog, where I mention my most anticipated films. Of course, as is suggested by the word "anticipated," I have not seen these films personally, and everything I know about then has come from filmmaker profiles, film teasers, and other promotional tools on Sundance's website and on YouTube (ah, that inescapable buzz machine!). It is worth mentioning here that independent film by no means means low-budget films, and many of these Sundance films are in fact high budget and are acted in by relatively famous film actors. However, in terms of cinematic weight, I see no reason why these films, good by any standards, should be seen as any less groundbreaking and artistic because of their budget. They are Sundance films, after all...


Features (Dramatic)

Joshua: George Ratliff won incredible acclaim for his 2001 film "Hell House," a documentary about the hell house phenomenon: a church's graphic "haunted-house" type depiction (and terrifying "tour") of hell. Now he's back directing what appears to be an equally dark feature film about an immaculate New York family and their piano prodigy son Joshua, who, after the birth of his sister, begins to show dark, terrifying aspects of himself and his talents. The film, though set in the upper-class environments of Joshua's family's home, is shot with an eye to the frightening, with a jagged camera style and an attention toward shadows and night.

Weapons: Acclaimed director of "Bomb the System", a film about a graffiti artist in New York, Adam Bhala Lough returns behind the camera to direct Weapons, a new film about several "random" youth killings in a small town and the relationships between them. Lough continues working in his comfort zone of youth culture and young characters, but it should be interesting how the very urban mentality of his first film translates into the small town dynamics of his second.

Features (Documentary)

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet): Six years in the making, this urgent and intelligent film by first-time director Jason Kohn deals with the difficult subjects of poverty, corrupt politics, and the kidnapping industry in Brazil. These complex issues plaguing Brazil today are explored and examined through tracing the stories of individual people, a cue Kohn took from legendary filmmaker and mentor Errol Morris. These individual people happen to be a wealthy businessman, a plastic surgeon who aids mutilated kidnap victims, and a fabulously corrupt politician who relies on a frog farm for income, and Kohl's explorations with them lead to everything from an interview with an actual professional kidnapper to footage of children playing a kidnapping and violence in the street. One of the most acclaimed films at Sundance this year!

Banished: From about the end of the civil war to the Great Depression, there were several cities in America that forcibly and illegally banished their African-American neighbors, forcing them to leave their homes and flee. This is the story acclaimed documentary filmmaker Marco Williams tells by researching the events that occurred in three of these communities and by following the ancestors of those who were banished returning to try to reclaim their families' land. Marco Williams, an African-American man who has made films about Martin Luther King and hate crimes, fears nothing when armed with a camera, and interviews everybody from disgruntled black families trying to regain what is theirs to an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Shorts

Bomb: Ian Olds won critical acclaim for his 2006 documentary "Operation: Dreamland" about American soldiers in Iraq, and has returned with this artistic short film about a child's attitude toward his parents' drug and alcohol abuse. Shot on 35mm but with the stock pushed a stop and a half, Olds engineered the film to look like an old hand tinted photograph.

High Falls: Easily the most professional short in terms of cast and production value, this film by Andrew Zuckerman starring Maggie Gyllenhall and Peter Sarsgaard tells the story of a young married couple who each tell their best friend a burning secret about the other. This film is worth the view if only for the novelty value of watching a first time director directing such great stars, but hopefully Zuckerman will show a little more than novelty in his Sundance debut and prove himself an up-and-coming young director.

Master of Reality: In this short documentary, young filmmaker Matthew Killip tells of the 80's-90's phenomenon of backyard WWF wrestling, where suburban children would re-enact the fights of their heroes, sometimes with dire consequences. Weaving together home footage of his own fights from his childhood in a suburb of Dallas Texas, Killip paints a chilling but intelligent picture of coming of age in suburbia.

Controversial Pick (or What My Parents Shouldn't Read)

Teeth: Even in the world of independent cinema there is rarely a film that invites as many raised eyebrows and stifled giggles as this film by Mitchell Lichtenstein. This film modernizes the ancient vagina dentata myth that, according to Lichenstein, can be seen in countless ancient mythologies and folklores. The myth tells of a race of fearsome women with toothed vaginas that a hero often must overcome and...um...conquer. This film tells the story of Dawn, a high school student and member of the local chastity group, who learns of her...uhh...vaginal abnormality and has to create something...positive out of it. (eek!) How is that for a different kind of date movie?!