Sundance Festival 2009
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/
STORYTIME is both an invitation to join the many artists who have shaped Sundance as they share their stories, as well as an opportunity to contribute your own memories to our archive, as we build the record of our living history for years to come.
For now, visit here often for info on tickets, planning your trip, and more. It's all to come. So set your clocks in either direction - forward to the upcoming Festival or back at Festivals past - and join us here in December for the start of STORYTIME.
FILM & EVENTS
Each year the Sundance Film Festival selects 200 films for exhibition from more than 8,000 submissions. More than 50,000 people attend screenings in twelve theatres in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. In addition to discovering filmmaking's newest talent through the Festival's program of documentary, dramatic, and short film, Festivalgoers experience live music shows, panel discussions with leading filmmakers and industry figures, parties celebrating the Festival community, and more.
Check back here in early December for the announcement of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival program, and a line-up of our Off Screen events including Conversations and Panels, Music Café, Opening and Closing Weekend celebrations, and information on all the theatres and venues where it all goes down.
Now Playing | Features | Artists Speak |Films Now Playing in Theatres:
In American Teen director Nanette Bernstein intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Filming daily for 10 months and using cinema vérité footage, interviews, and animation, she presents a vivid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. Through Bernstein’s incredible talent for storytelling and uncovering the many layers of truth in her subjects, the end result is a film that goes beyond the stereotypes of high school--the nerd and the jock, the homecoming queen, and the arty misfit—to capture the complexity of young people trying to make their way into adulthood. American Teen premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won the Documentary Directing Prize.
From the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, directors Mark and Jay Duplass offer a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek, genre-twisting comedy. Baghead follows the dynamic between four actor friends as they desperately attempt to launch their careers by writing their own scripts to star in. They escape to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of boozing and brainstorming and what ensues is a brilliant roast on the process of filmmaking.
A wickedly colorful dark comedy from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Choke is a story of mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of colonial theme parks. In this adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s acclaimed novel, actor-turned-director Clark Gregg elicits staggering performances from Sam Rockwell as the sex-addicted med-school dropout son and Angelica Houston as the mother slipping into a state of derangement in a mental hospital. Told with humor and insight, Choke is about a last-minute search for truth in a life where every chance for lucidity has been suppressed. Choke received a Special Jury Prize for an Ensemble Cast.
Flow: For Love of Water is an inspired, yet disturbingly provocative, wake-up call. Irena Salina's documentary constructs a cautionary profile of the relationship between humans and the quintessence of life: water. Spanning the globe from Africa to California, Salina focuses on the underlying issues of pollution, human rights, politics, and corruption – all of which threaten the world's most precious resource. By the end of her film, the urgency of the water crises is clear and in a call for action Salina offers the audience an example of how community activism can make a difference. Flow: For Love of Water premiered at the '08 Sundance Film Festival.
A Sundance alumnus with her short Hotel Belgrad, Andrea Staka returned to the 2007 Sundance Film Festival with her artfully crafted feature debut Fraulein. This story of friendship follows three women from Yugoslavia who intersect in their emigrant lives in Zurich. Ruža, joyless and completely detached from her past, owns a cafeteria, and Mila, a waitress there, is good-humored and full of dreams of returning home. They both receive a wake-up call when Ana, a young, itinerant women appears in the cafeteria looking for work. All of their conflicting spirits implode and later resonate as the three women are ultimately moved by the bond they share illuminating their own self-discoveries.
When Ray's husband leaves her with two sons and no savings, she is forced to find a way to make ends meet. She encounters Lila, a street-smart Mohawk woman who deals with her own hardships by smuggling illegal immigrants across the reservation in upstate New York and into the states. Although suspicious of each other, the two women team up for a run. Full of atmosphere, heart, and outstanding performances, Courtney Hunt’s deeply emotional first feature is ultimately a narrative about family and necessity and the courage that bonds people together. Frozen River won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
The legendary status of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is due as much to his scintillating journalism as to his outrageous antics. Although his persona often overshadowed his work, his steadfast convictions at the forefront of his writing influenced history and a new style of journalism dubbed "gonzo." Director Alex Gibney focuses on the height of Thompson's rebellions from 1965 to 1975. Through interviews with Thompson's peers, clips of never-before-seen home movies and audiotapes, parts from unpublished manuscripts, and with narration by Johnny Depp, the audience is offered a remarkable glimpse of the makings and disillusionment of an icon. Gonzo premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Both funny and a joy to watch, Good Dick is a truly original love story from first-time filmmaker Marianna Palka, the tour-de-force writer/director/actor whose distinctive sensibility informs every aspect of the film. Anna, a woman who frequents an independent video store for their latest erotic offerings, and George (Jason Ritter), a lovable loser and video store clerk, offer up one of the quirkiest couplings in indie film. Tortured by deep-seeded emotional barriers, Anna is persistently pursued by George, who openly positions himself to receive her blatant rejections. What begins as a bizarre standoff evolves into a relationship that turns the whole notion of "romance" on its head and gives us a more modern - if more offbeat - idea of love. Good Dick premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
British comic actor Steve Coogan stars in this film mostly set in high school, and there are musical numbers, but any resemblance to High School Musical stops here. Director Andy Fleming steers a zany cast between delicious dialogue and insane situations. Coogan plays a sometimes-delusional high school teacher who brings another one of his infamous productions to the stage to not rave reviews. As students rebel and his job is threatened, he realizes he has limited time to achieve his ultimate dream: staging an original production of Hamlet 2, a sequel to Shakespeare's original. Hamlet 2 premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
A Premiere from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Mark Pellington's Henry Poole is Here is a soul-searching work that is also acerbic and funny. Henry, resonantly played by Luke Wilson, is a man who seems to have it all—from a fiancée to a family business— until a routine doctor's appointment reveals that all is not perfect. Reacting to this devastation, Henry flees his life and holes up in a house in a working-class suburb and begins to struggle with his new inquisitive neighbors and the seeping in of his past life. Pellington's film about life and death ultimately presents a man, who trying to escape his life, finds that life won't leave him behind.
Patrick Creadon's documentary from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival drives home the message that America is on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for U.S. citizens. Creadon looks at social security, an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, and debts to foreign countries to show the epic proportions of this economic disaster. Yet this film is so powerful because it moves beyond doomsday rhetoric and presents potential financial scenarios to propose solutions about how we can create a fiscally responsible nation.
Parvez Sharma's debut documentary is one of the world's first looks at the complex crossroad of the Islamic faith and homosexuality. Filming in secret, Sharma spans the world including stories from India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, and France to bring to life the diverse voices of Islam and how different lives are affected by this issue. A Jihad for Love received funding from Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program.
It's New York City, August 7, 1974 – A young Frenchman named Philippe Petit crosses a wire suspended 1,350 feet above the ground between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center with no safety net. He is subsequently arrested for the "artistic crime of the century." Award-winning documentary filmmaker James Marsh investigates the clandestine plotting of Petit's walk which transpires between New York and rural France. With the suspense of a heist film, Marsh uncovers archival footage, candid interviews from Petit and his team, and delightful visual effects to astonish audiences with an adventure story from the past set against the visceral presence of a post-9/11 backdrop. Winner of an Audience Award and Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary, Man on Wire premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Director Azazel Jacobs, in this humorous and poignant film, explores the common trend of young men not wanting to leave the comforts of their parents' home. Jacobs cast his own parents and shot the film in his childhood apartment to capture the unique moments of a family's intimate interactions. The story follows Mikey who returns to his parents' home after leaving his wife and child. Mikey grows more entrenched in this safe nest as his mother comforts him and his father predictably remains distant. A premiere from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Momma's Man is a balancing act about the strengths and weaknesses that people get from their families.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich raises questions and brings clarity to the limbo that still follows one of the world's greatest film directors. Polanski's reputation has been forever tarnished by a public conviction for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor over 30 years ago and his subsequent flight from the U.S. to allegedly avoid jail time. This riveting documentary revisits these complex events, the controversies of the legal system, and the mass chaos of the media to bring to light a story that never fully surfaced in the headlines of this Hollywood story. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Based on Alicia Erian's novel, Towelhead is set in the era of Desert Storm, explores the sexual awakening of a 13-year-old Arab American girl and only child of a Lebanese father and American mother. Six Feet Under creator and American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball directs an all-star cast including Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, and Toni Collette in this powerfully provocative and deeply disturbing look at the underbelly of suburban America. With humor, satire, and pathos Towelhead captures the simmering anti-Arab sentiment that came to boil after 9/11. Towelhead premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Both a psychological puzzle and suspenseful thriller, director Brad Anderson artfully crafts dramatic action with engrossing atmosphere. An American couple, engagingly played by Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, decide to return home by train from a trip to Peking. They meet another Western couple with whom they bond as travelers often do, but their new friends are not who they seem to be. With Russian cops, mobsters, and colorful locals, the dangers and surprises of this train ride transport audiences through a unique cinematic experience. Transsiberian premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
The atrociously ignored Hurricane Katrina refugees get a platform to tell their stories in Trouble the Water. Documentarians Tia Lessin and Carl Deal engage with native New Orleans filmmaker and musician Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband, Scott, to offer a snapshot of the city transformed by disaster and heroics. Through the first-hand accounts of Kimberly's home video footage taken before, during, and after the storm, the filmmakers bring a personal perspective to this historic event that most media failed to cover. But what is truly amazing about this story is not the harrowing details, but the survivor's faith in humanity. Trouble the Water was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington bring cutting-edge 3-D and surround-sound technology to the forefront to offer an electrifying concert experience. U2 3D is a multi-sensory glimpse at U2's 2006 tour through South America as Bono steps off of the screen and performs songs that have been touching audiences for years. After its North American premiere at the ’08 Festival, the film is now playing in theatres nationwide.
Beautifully photographed, this documentary illuminates a final snapshot of a rapidly disappearing landscape. Director Yung Chang examines the effects of the completion of China's mammoth Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Although considered an achievement in modern progress, this dam will displace more than a million residents and destroy numerous cultural and archaeological sites. From the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this is a powerful look at individual lives transformed by this stunning story.
Walter Vale, an economics professor from Connecticut, has withdrawn from life since his wife died. When he travels to Manhattan to attend a conference, he returns to his seldom-used apartment in the city to find it has become home to two squatters. Tarek, a Syrian man, and his lover, Zainab, from Senegal, impose on Walter's life in many ways—and their relationships soon blossom into deep friendships. The couple haunted by immigration issues, turn to Walter for help, and Walter turns to the couple for emotional revival. Director Tom McCarthy's superbly crafted story premiered at the '08 Festival.
Director/screenwriter Jonathan Levine's second feature, The Wackness, perfectly captures the textures of Manhattan in the late nineties as it follows a pot-dealing loser kid, Luke Shapiro, who is carrying the weight of his parent's financial troubles as he battles his own depression. Luke strikes a deal with his psychiatrist, dazzingly played by Sir Ben Kingsley, who offers Luke sessions for weed. The two form an unlikely coupling as they whimsically passage through the streets of New York City learning how to coexist with rather than be overcome by the pains of life. The Wackness premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won the Dramatic Audience Award.
Director and screenwriter Stephen Walker's Young@Heart follows a seven-week rehearsal process of a Northampton choir group whose collective age hits 80. Billed as "seniors behaving badly," the group shines their way through stumbled Sonic Youth lyrics, tough-love choir-direction, and confrontations of failing health to offer a lesson on blissful longevity. Funny, poignant, and inspirational, Walker's intimate documentary shows how those with heart only get better with age. Young@Heart premiered at the '08 Festival.
Plays:
Directed by Leisl Tommy, the world premiere of The Good Negro (Theatre Lab 2006) by Tracey Scott Wilson opens on October 15 at the Dallas Theatre Center. Alabama. 1962. When an African-American woman is beaten and arrested for taking her young daughter into a whites-only restroom, a trio of burgeoning civil rights leaders decides to make a stand. But first they must convince their community that now is the time to throw off the shackles of being "good negroes" and to rise up against hate and injustice.
Receiver of Best New Musical from New York Drama Critics' Circle, nominated for 10 Drama Desk Nominations, and recipient of eight Tonys (including Best Musical), Spring Awakening was developed at Sundance Institute's Theatre Lab in 2000 by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik. The show about sex in 1880's Germany continues its national tour at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre and Seattle’s Paramount Theatre in October and November.
Written by Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman, The Civilians' This Beautiful City, is a play that explores the Evangelical movement and its unofficial U.S. capital. This project studies Colorado Springs as an American intersection where church and state coexist and/or conflict. This Beautiful City, developed at Sundance Institute's Theatre Lab in 2007, continues its west coast premiere in Los Angeles at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City and runs through October 26, 2008.
Wig Out! written by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Theatre Lab 2007) premieres at New York's Vineyard Theatre on September 10 and runs through October 19. This fierce and intoxicating story tells of competing "houses" of drag queens and the loves, loyalties, and dreams within each that draw their members together and apart.
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