All these wonderful things

The Top 25 Film Festivals for Documentaries, 2nd Edition - #1. Sundance

Previously: Introducing the Top 25 Festivals for Documentaries, 2nd Edition

1. Sundance Film Festival

Our take: The Cannes of documentary.  As this year proved, Oscar winners and nominees want their films to premiere in Park City.  It's a massive showcase for North American buyers and audiences - one of the few film festivals that means something outside of the insular indie film community.  People come here to see movies, not just attend parties and panels (although there is that too) and what plays at Sundance will soon play out at many (if not all) of the other festivals on this list.  Plus, the prevailing wisdom - often true - is that the documentaries at Sundance are far superior than the narrative slate, which leads to lots of press attention and key reviews that can, if good, boost a film's distribution chances.  Finally, Sundance takes care of its filmmakers: being invited into the Sundance family is a long-term relationship and can pay dividends over years.

The downside: Slots are limited, particularly when all those A-listers want in.  European buyers don't come (they find it too expensive and figure that filmmakers are looking for big theatrical deals, not smallish European TV ones).  The slate has - at least in past years - heavily focused on activist, campaign films and what we've come to call "bleeding heart" docs, some of which originate in Sundance's Documentary Fund.  Last year's Temple Theatre location felt like the doc ghetto, leading to many folks skipping screenings there.

Important recent premieres: THE COVE, MAN ON WIRE, TROUBLE THE WATER, THE ORDER OF MYTHS, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, BIG RIVER MAN, THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON), ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, EL GENERAL, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, SERGIO, NO IMPACT MAN

Our coverage of Sundance here.

The Monday Brief: Exhaling the Week That Was, Sundance Advice, Toback's Extortion Charge & Varnum Goes on Hiatus

Deep breath.

After a week filled with all kinds of documentary developments, we're now settling into a week that's slightly less packed.  Today, the Sundance short films are announced and on Sunday, the Los Angeles Film Critics are scheduled to announce their 2009 winners.

Already the DC Film Critics jumped to the front of the line last night by announcing FOOD, INC. as their winner (it had earlier been revealed as one of five nominees along with ANVIL!, THE COVE, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and GOOD HAIR.

Another winner yesterday? Oscar shortlister MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN, which won the Best Documentary award at the British Independent Film Awards.

If you haven't been paying attention this week, you missed a humdinger, what with Sundance announcements, Gotham & IDA winners, Spirit nominations and the like.  If you missed any of it, here's a recap:

We unveiled The Horse Race and examine FOOD, INC.'s Oscar chances in light of a big week ahead, just before...

...FOOD, INC. wins the Gotham for Best Documentary and...

...is nominated for a Spirit Award in the same category, giving it the rare pre-Oscar sweep of major doc award nominations.  Others up for Best Feature include probable spoiler ANVIL!, MORE THAN A GAME, OCTOBER COUNTRY and WHICH WAY HOME.

The IDA unveils seven of its winners four days before the Friday ceremony which ultimately crowns ANVIL! as its Best Documentary Feature.  The love at the IDAs and probable love at the Spirits makes us wonder if we shouldn't reconsider ANVIL's very remote Best Picture chances.

In the midst of all this, THE COVE gets some love from the National Board of Review.

Sundance unveils a stellar competition line-up as well as a promising out-of-competition slate.

And finally, two leading Cinema Eye nominees - BIG RIVER MAN and LOOT - open at the IFC Center in NYC and a couple of cranky conservatives try to exact some kind of revenge on Al Gore and AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and the LA Times bungles the story.

The Sundance announcements always bring mixed emotions - the excitement of a whetted appetite for what's coming next year and the knowledge that literally thousands of filmmakers were disappointed not to hear Park City's clarion call.

Filmmaker Magazine's Scott Macauley addresses those who received the form emails:

"The first thing: for a few days, forget about it. Don’t think about your film. This weekend go out to a concert, or a museum, or a park. Watch football. Probably don’t go to the movies. If you were obsessively refreshing this site or Indiewire all week to see the Sundance list, take a break from not only your film but film itself.

Next week dive back into it. And as you do so, recognize the one thing you now have that all those Sundance filmmakers don't: time. Time to take a second look at the film, screen it, refine it, finesse, or perhaps just find the right post-production vendor. Time to fine tune the DIY marketing and distribution plan that you really wouldn’t have been able to pull together by mid-January."

Sundance 2010 Out-of-Competition: New Work from Sam Green, Dan Klores, Adrian Grenier and Film #2 from Lucy Walker

Sundance just unveiled their out-of-competition roster, including a series of documentaries in the festival's Spotlight section.  Sure to be noticed is the presence of a second Sundance film from Lucy Walker, this one about nuclear weapons produced by Participant called COUNTDOWN TO ZERO.  Yesterday, the festival announced Walker's WASTE LAND as a World Competition title.

One of the most interesting films/experiences on today's list - for this writer, at least - is the announcement of Sam Green's piece in the New Frontier section.  Titled UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS, it's described by the festival as a "live documentary" with on-site narration from the filmmaker.

The festival also announced its new Spotlight section, which it subtitles as "a tribute to the cinema we love. Regardless of where these impressive films have played throughout the world, the Sundance Film Festival is thrilled to light a marquee for them."  Interestingly, although the narrative films in this section are films that have played other festivals, the docs are all world premieres.  And one of these is a new film from ENTOURAGE star (and, it should be noted a documentary filmmaker who has screened previous work at Toronto) Adrian Grenier about paparazzi, marking the second such film at Sundance on that topic (Leon Gast's SMASH HIS CAMERA is in the US Competition).

A list of nonfiction titles announced today, by section, are below, with descriptions supplied by the festival.

PREMIERES

SHOCK DOCTRINE / USA (Directors: Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross)
Closely based on the book by award-winning journalist Naomi Klein, Shock Doctrine exposes how shock is used to implement economic policy in vulnerable environments. North American Premiere

 

SPOTLIGHT DOCUMENTARY

 

LOUIS C.K.: HILARIOUS / USA (Director: Louis C.K.)
Sharp-tongued comedian Louis C.K. pulls no punches in this visceral concert experience. World Premiere

 

8: THE MORMON PROPOSITION / USA(Director: Reed Cowan)
An examination of the relationship between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the promotion and passage of California's Proposition 8 denying marriage rights for Gay and Lesbian couples. World Premiere

 

CATFISH / USA(Directors: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman)
When a young New York City photographer is contacted on Facebook by an 8-year-old painting prodigy from rural Michigan, he becomes deeply enmeshed in her life, even falling in love with her older sister--that is, until a crack appears in her story. World Premiere

 

CLIMATE REFUGEES / USA (Director: Michael Nash)
An over-consuming, crowded world, with depleting resources and a changing climate is giving birth to 25 million climate refugees resulting in a mass global migration and border conflicts. World Premiere

 

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO / USA (Director: Lucy Walker)
A fascinating and frightening exploration of the dangers of nuclear weapons, exposing a variety of present day threats and featuring insights from a host of international experts and world leaders who advocate total global disarmament. World Premiere

 

LIFE 2.0 / USA(Director: Jason Spingarn-Koff)
More than an examination of new technology, the film is foremost an intimate, character-based drama about people whose lives are dramatically transformed by the virtual world called Second Life. World Premiere

 

TEENAGE PAPARAZZO / USA(Director: Adrian Grenier)
A 13-year-old paparazzi boy snaps a photo of actor Adrian Grenier, leading Grenier to explore the effects of celebrity on culture. World Premiere

 

TO CATCH A DOLLAR: MUHAMMAD YUNUS BANKS ON AMERICA / Bangladesh, USA (Director: Gayle Ferraro)
Tapping into the success of Muhammad Yunus after winning the Nobel Peace Prize (2006), Grameen America has opened in Queens, NY replicating the banking model program Yunus first started in Bangladesh. World Premiere

 

WINNING TIME: REGGIE MILLER VS. THE NEW YORK KNICKS / USA (Director: Dan Klores)
Reggie Miller single-handedly crushed the hearts of Knick fans multiple times. But it was the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals that solidified Miller as Public Enemy #1 in New York City. World Premiere

 

NEW FRONTIER

ODDSAC / USA (Director: Daniel Perez)
An earthy, psychedelic experimental narrative infused with the band, Animal Collective’s aural and musical sensibilities. World Premiere

 

UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS / USA (Director: Sam Green)
In this “live documentary” Sam Green’s live narration blends with Dave Cerf’s soundtrack to explore the battered state of the utopian impulse at the dawn of the 21st century.  World Premiere

Sundance 2010 Competition Slate: New Films from Alex Gibney, Laura Poitras, Davis Guggenheim, Amir Bar-Lev, Lucy Walker, Leon Gast, José Padilha, Stanley Nelson, Jeffrey Blitz, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern

We now have our first real glimpse of the films we will be thinking and talking about in 2010, as the Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its competition slates for US and world titles.  And as previewed, this year looks to be an all-star barn-burner, with brand new films from a host of Oscar winners (Alex Gibney, Davis Guggenheim, Leon Gast), nominees (Laura Poitras, Jeffrey Blitz, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady) and from folks who've had big success in Park City with their previous efforts (José Padilha, Amir Bar-Lev, Lucy Walker, Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern).

We'll have much more on these films in the coming days and weeks (and frankly, months), but for now, here's this year's competition line-up, with descriptions furnished by the festival:

U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
This year’s 16 films were selected from 862 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

BHUTTO (Directors: Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O'Hara)
A riveting journey through the life and work of  recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani prime minister and a polarizing figure in the Muslim world. World Premiere

CASINO JACK & THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY (Director: Alex Gibney)
A probing investigation into the lies, greed and corruption surrounding D.C. super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies.  World Premiere

FAMILY AFFAIR (Director: Chico Colvard)
An uncompromising documentary that examines resilience, survival and the capacity to accommodate a parent's past crimes in order to satisfy the longing for family. World Premiere

FREEDOM RIDERS (Director: Stanley Nelson)
The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called the Freedom Riders who in 1961 creatively challenged segregation in the American South. World Premiere

GAS LAND (Director: Josh Fox)
A cross-country odyssey uncovers toxic streams, dying livestock, flammable sinks and weakening health among rural citizens on the front lines of the natural gas drilling craze. World Premiere

I'M PAT _______ TILLMAN (Director: Amir Bar-Lev)
The story of professional football star and decorated U.S. soldier Pat Tillman, whose family takes on the U.S. government when their beloved son dies in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan in 2004. World Premiere

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD (Director: Tamra Davis)
The story of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work defined, electrified and challenged an era, and whose untimely death at age 27 has made him a cultural icon. World Premiere

JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK (Directors: Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg)
A rare, brutally honest glimpse into the comedic process and private dramas of legendary comedian and pop icon Joan Rivers as she fights tooth and nail to keep her American dream alive. World Premiere

LUCKY (Director: Jeffrey Blitz)
The story of what happens when ordinary people hit the lottery jackpot. World Premiere

MY PERESTROIKA (Director: Robin Hessman)
Intimately tracking the lives of five Muscovites who came of age just as the USSR collapsed and are adjusting to their post-Soviet reality, My Perestroika maps the contours of a nation in profound transition. World Premiere

THE OATH (Director: Laura Poitras)
Filmed in Yemen, The Oath tells the story of two men whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a course of events that led them to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the U.S. Supreme Court. World Premiere

RESTREPO (Directors: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington)
Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's year dug in with the Second Platoon in one of Afghanistan's most strategically crucial valleys reveals extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of back breaking labor, deadly firefights, and camaraderie as the soldiers painfully push back the Taliban. World Premiere

A SMALL ACT (Director: Jennifer Arnold)
A young Kenyan’s life changes dramatically when his education is sponsored by a Swedish stranger. Years later, he founds his own scholarship program to replicate the kindness he once received. World Premiere

SMASH HIS CAMERA (Director: Leon Gast)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis sued him, and Marlon Brando broke his jaw. The story of notorious, reviled paparazzo Ron Galella opens a Pandora's Box of issues from right to privacy, freedom of the press and the ever-growing vortex of celebrity worship. World Premiere

12TH & DELAWARE (Directors: Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing)
The abortion battle continues to rage in unexpected ways on an unassuming corner in America. World Premiere

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (Director: Davis Guggenheim)
Waiting for Superman examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories—from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system. World Premiere

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
This year’s 12 films were selected from 782 international documentary submissions.

A FILM UNFINISHED / Germany, Israel (Director: Yael Hersonski)
Film reels uncovered in Nazi archives reveal the mechanisms used to stage Warsaw Ghetto life--images which have shaped our view of history. World Premiere

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE / Cambodia, United Kingdom (Directors: Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath)
A young journalist whose family was killed by the Khmer Rouge befriends the perpetrators of the Killing Fields genocide, evoking shocking revelations. U.S. Premiere

FIX ME /  France, Palestinian Territories, Switzerland (Director: Raed Andoni)
When Palestinian filmmaker Raed Andoni gets a headache that won't quit, he seeks out help and insight in different forms in his hometown of Ramallah. International Premiere

HIS & HERS / Ireland (Director: Ken Wardrop)
Seventy Irish women offer moving insights into the relationships between women and men. North American Premiere

KICK IN IRAN / Gemany (Director: Fatima Geza Abdollahyan)
The first female professional Taekwondo fighter from Iran to qualify for the Olympic Games struggles for recognition in a society where women still play a subordinate role. World Premiere

LAST TRAIN HOME / Canada (Director: Lixin Fan)
Getting a train ticket in China proves a towering ordeal as a migrant worker family embarks on a journey, along with 200 million other peasants, to reunite with their distant family. U.S. Premiere

THE RED CHAPEL (Det Røde Kapel) / Denmark (Director: Mads Brügger)
A journalist with no scruples, a self-proclaimed spastic, and a comedian travel to North Korea under the guise of a cultural exchange visit to challenge one of the world’s most notorious regimes. U.S. Premiere

RUSSIAN LESSONS / Georgia, Germany, Norway (Directors: Olga Konskaya and Andrei Nekrasov)
An investigation into Russian actions during the 2008 war in Georgia, revealing the little known story of the ethnic cleansing in the region since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. World Premiere

SECRETS OF THE TRIBE / Brazil (Director: José Padilha)
Is the academic Anthropology community capable of generating real knowledge about mankind? The scandals and the infighting regarding the representation of indigenous Indians in the Amazon Basin seems to indicate that the answer may be a resounding no. World Premiere

SINS OF MY FATHER / Argentina, Colombia (Director: Nicolas Entel)
The life and times of notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar are recounted through the eyes of his son, who fled Colombia to move beyond his father's legacy. North American Premiere

SPACE TOURISTS / Switzerland (Director: Christian Frei)
A humorous and laconic view of the way billionaires depart our planet earth to travel into outer space for fun. North American Premiere

WASTE LAND / United Kingdom (Director: Lucy Walker)
Lives are transformed when international art star Vik Muniz collaborates with garbage pickers in the world's largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro. World Premiere

The Monday Brief: Sundance! Spirits! IDA! Gothams! Is This the Biggest Week of the Year?

The Monday Brief is back and just in time - as a month full of European mega-fests comes to a close (and VIDEOCRACY takes Sheffield, TRASH HUMPERS shocks Copenhagen and LAST TRAIN HOME conquers Amsterdam) and what may just be the biggest week of the year...

The Gothams kick off the award season in New York tonight as high profile docs FOOD, INC., GOOD HAIR and TYSON take on underdogs MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER and PARADISE.  In addition to those, festival favorite OCTOBER COUNTRY is up as the sole nonfiction title in the Films Not Yet Playing at a Theater Near You category. 

Here's a piece of trivia - in the five years that the Gothams have awarded a Best Documentary prize, the winning film has never gone on to win the Oscar, which is pretty good news if you're betting on THE COVE in March.

For the first time, the Gothams will be streaming live here, starting at 8 PM eastern tonight.

Then early tomorrow - probably before some Gotham revelers have gone to bed - Film Independent will announced nominations for its Spirit Awards.  Worth watching - will FOOD, INC. sweep the major doc award nominations prior to the Oscars?  Will the Spirits act (consciously or no) as a corrective on some of Oscar's snubs (I'm looking at you ANVIL, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC and SEPTEMBER ISSUE)? 

Also worth watching are the nominations in the Truer Than Fiction category, which recognize films and filmmakers who have not yet received the attention they deserve.

Then, on Wednesday, the dam will fully break as the Sundance Film Festival announces its competition films for 2010.  Here's what we know already - after what many agreed was a lackluster 2009 festival, next year's Sundance is shaping up (on paper at least) to be a barn-burner for docs.  At least three films from Oscar nominated filmmakers are on tap, along with 2 new films from folks who took Sundance by storm with their previous features, plus a veteran Sundance filmmaker is back as producer on a debut feature.

And that's not even including LAST TRAIN HOME, the IDFA-champ that everyone and their mother expects to show in Park City (along with 2 or 3 or more titles from the just-wrapped European doc circuit).

By the way, if you haven't checked it out yet, gander at the newly re-designed Sundance fest website, which leads off with a retro graphic manifesto:

"REBEL.  This is the renewed rebellion.  This is the re-charged fight against the establishment of the expected.  This is the rebirth of the battle for brave new ideas.  This is Sundance, reminded.  And this is your call to join us."

That's a whole lot of "re" words. 

And what does it say, exactly, that John Cooper's first year at the helm begins with the declaration that Sundance needed a rebirth and a re-charge?  (Although, again, after last year, you won't get much argument from these's parts.)  Slogans aside, the week's first peak at this year's line-up will give our first clues as to whether there's a true revolution (a "re" word they didn't use) afoot.

The Monday Brief: IT Does GET LOUD in Theatres, A Tough Week for THE COVE and WOODSTOCK At 39

Good morning.  We're more than halfway through August and just under three weeks away from the World Premiere of Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY at La Biennale di Venezia...

But the big documentary news of the weekend is the stellar debut of the new film from another Oscar winner.  Davis Guggenheim's IT MIGHT GET LOUD, the story of the electric guitar as seen through Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, broke out this weekend - and big.  Playing at just 7 theaters, the Sony Pictures Classics release made more than $100K, marking the best release for a documentary this year that was playing on more than 2 screens. 

IT MIGHT GET LOUD continues the sensational nonfiction streak for SPC this year, coming on the heels of WALTZ WITH BASHIR (just under $2.3M) EVERY LITTLE STEP ($1.6M and still going) and even TYSON ($886K).

It also marks the latest nonfiction feature from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival to become a hit with moviegoers (following BASHIR, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, EVERY LITTLE STEP and FOOD, INC.  Together, those five titles (including IT MIGHT GET LOUD) have taken in nearly $8.5M.  The highest grossing Sundance film this year is ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL from the 2008 fest (although many haven't been released yet).

One 2009 Sundance title that entered theatres with lofty expectations - huge box office, Oscar nominations, changing maritime law - was THE COVE.  But this was not a good week for that film in terms of the things that worry filmmakers and distributors - box office and press. 

First, despite strong reviews and a new promotional push - including an appearance by director Louie Psihoyos on the Today Show - the film slipped to a per theater average of just $1,660 this weekend and a total cume of $424K.  It now looks like the film will have to struggle to make it to $1M at the box office Worse was a piece in the LA Times by John Horn that used THE COVE as the poster child for why environmental docs aren't working at the box office (we wondered why Horn never bothered to mention Disney's EARTH in his story).  It's never a good sign to have your distributor (in this case, Roadside Attractions' Howard Cohen) quoted as saying, "It's not what we would have hoped" and "the concept of the movie is much more off-putting than the experience of watching it".

John Cooper Announced as New Sundance Fest Director

In a widely anticipated move, the Sundance Institute early Wednesday announced that John Cooper would succeed Geoffrey Gilmore as Director of the Sundance Film Festival.  Cooper previously served as Director of Programming.  Gilmore departed Sundance last month to move to Tribeca.

From the Sundance press release, Sundance Founder Robert Redford said, "When we established the Festival, it was always with two goals in mind: supporting new artists and inspiring new audiences. Cooper has never lost sight of these goals. He brings to the position an infectious enthusiasm as well as a deep understanding of the Sundance brand and culture. Forward thinking, he is a natural choice of succession to lead the Festival into the 21st century."

A Peek Behind the Festival Programming Curtain

Festival programming is often bewildering:  how and why a festival chooses to program one film as opposed another is a crazy mix of curation, personal relationships, local (and, in some cases, national) audience tastes, previous experience, publicity potential and, oh yeah, quality.

With all the changes going on at festivals this past year (the latest being Geoffrey Gilmore's exit from Sundance for Tribeca, which we will cover in more depth shortly), the goings-on in festival programming offices can sometimes seem even more confusing.

How, for example, would Janet Pierson combine her own tastes with the successful SXSW programming of past director Matt Dentler?  How will Sadie Tillery put her own fingerprint on Full Frame this year?  What will the shuttering of BritDoc mean for Sheffield?

Luckily, Pierson has done a few interviews with folks talking about her choices for this year (one was here, another was with Eugene at indieWIRE), giving us a sense of where she might take the fest.  We hope to be doing a couple more of these with programmers over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, my massive blog crush on seafar, Hot Docs' programmer Sean Farnel's blog, continues unabated.  He's been writing at length about his process in selecting titles for this year's festival, and it's a primer that any filmmaker should read.  Currently, there are a series of 6 posts, each a weekly update into one programmer's decision making.

In summary:

Week One:

"We, the Hot Docs programming team and I, are looking for about 175 films which are appropriate. Not for a six-year-old, but for our smart, generous, curious Hot Docs audience, which includes the international industry that attends our event looking for “product.” More than 2000 films will be viewed, the vast majority of them at least twice. We won’t watch ALL of ALL of the films. Sorry.

But, we will cull our submission shelves as thoroughly and thoughtfully as any film festival in the world. On this point, I’m obsessive. Filmmakers pay submission fees (which only cover a portion of properly administrating an unsolicited submissions process) with the expectation that the work they’ve just went broke making is going to be considered by capable people." 

Week Three:

"We are now deep into the sea of submissions at Hot Docs, and at last count there are 225 films on the Short List (also called, internally, “The Prog List”…as it is at TIFF, from where the term migrated). It will get longer before it gets shorter. We have two weeks of HEAVY screening, then Berlin, then we shape this big mound of documentary clay into a semi-coherent film festival."

Roadside Grabs THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE

Just after we'd posted our Sundance wrap yesterday and said that we'd heard deals might be in the works for certain festival docs, including RJ Cutler's THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, Roadside Attractions emerged as the suitor in question.

The company will release the film, which goes behind the scenes of Vogue Magazine, to theaters in September, natch.  Where you might be able to catch the film before that is still in the planning stages.

In a statement late Wednesday afternoon, A&E IndieFilms Executive Producer Molly Thompson told us, "RJ and I are very flattered and excited by the interest from top festivals and we're working out the plan with the awesome team at Roadside."

Roadside was previously responsible for the release of the 2008 Oscar shortlisted doc I.O.U.S.A. as well as Morgan Spurlock's Oscar-nominated SUPER SIZE ME.

Sundance 2009: Park City in Repose (Or: The Fest That Was)

Now nearly 10 days out from Park City and this year's anniversary edition of the vital US independent film mecca is beginning to come into sharper focus.  What we were sensing mid-week - the gathering word-of-mouth buzz that the fest was coming up short (at very least in comparison to 2008's remarkable lineup of WIRE, TROUBLE, MYTHS, POLANSKI, BETRAYAL, ANVIL and many others) has continued to play out as everyone returned from the high altitude.

News broke Monday afternoon on what will likely go down as the fest's biggest sale - a multi-layered deal for the Narrative Competition winner PUSH: BASED ON THE NOVEL BY SAPPHIRE that involved LionsGate, Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey.  The $5.5 million deal was the result of some fancy footwork by sales rep kingpin Cinetic Media, as indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez reported:

"'This a return to what Sundance is supposed to be as a market,” an enthused John Sloss from Cinetic told indieWIRE today, elaborating a strategy that included screening the movie at the Magic Johnson theater in Harlem days before it’s Sundance world premiere. Buoyed by an 80% definite recommend rating out of the Harlem showing, they battled an unfortunate first screening time that had PUSH playing against Antoine Fuqua’s BROOKLYN'S FINEST.

By awards night last Saturday at Sundance, Lee Daniels and Cinetic had enlisted the support of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who watched the movie prior to the festival. They then spent the week putting together a deal, with the Lionsgate team at Cinetic’s New York office to close the deal. Winfrey will support the release through her Harpo Films, while this will be the first movie affiliated with Perry’s 34th Street banner."

The PUSH sale marks a business-side highlight for the festival, which began with a number of hot titles that didn't attract the attention or buyers that they had hoped.  Among these, the Micheal Cera/Charlene Yi-starring hybrid film PAPER HEART.

Most of the Sundance 2009 docs that were looking for a theatrical deal are still in the hunt.  Arthouse Films made deals last week for two documentary competition titles - ART & COPY and WILLIAM KUNTSLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE and to date, that's all she wrote.  Granted, many of the films already had a television home waiting for them (counts vary, but HBO seems to have had as many as 7 films amongst the two competitive documentary sections), but even many of those films were holding out hope for a theatrical run.

However, one must keep in mind that the biggest doc to emerge from Sundance 2008 - James Marsh's MAN ON WIRE, didn't close its deal with Magnolia until a couple weeks after the fest was over.  A number of films are said to be in ongoing talks with distributors, including RJ Cutler's THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE and Grand Jury Prize winner WE LIVE IN PUBLIC from director Ondi Timoner.  We will likely hear more about those films and others in the coming weeks.

Also worth watching are the films themselves - particularly whether (or should we say how much) some of them will change in the months to come.  Tweaks, both large and small, are nothing new following major festival premieres.  Last year alone, Oscar nominee THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON) and shortlisted film I.O.U.S.A. both underwent revisions between their Park City premiere and the eventual theatrical release.  In his Sundance summary on the Stranger Than Fiction blog, Thom Powers notes that one of the World Cinema award winners is already planning on heading back into the edit suite:

"(BIG RIVER MAN Director John) Maringouin told me after the awards that he’s still not finished. He intends to go back to the edit room where I expect he’ll make a strong film even stronger."

Agnes Varnum, who came to Sundance for the second time, offered a pointed (and on-point) critique of this year's festival, questioning the fest's reliance this year on films that already had a home:

"My impression of more recent years, before I attended, was that it was an over-hyped, corporate A-list party. But it isn’t really either of those things… for me. The work is solid. Too solid. While there are more filmmakers than I can name off the top of my head whose new work was presented and I was as eager as anyone to see, there were few surprises. As many others are saying, I appreciated the mellow atmosphere so I didn’t have to fight crowds or miss out on screenings I really wanted (except THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE) but there wasn’t any film that wowed me with its exceptionalism.

As a friend pointed out, why do we need to trek all the way to Sundance to see films made for HBO or American Experience or Sony Pictures Classics or Focus Features? This is work we will be able to see, despite Redford and long-time Sundance fellows’ comments to the contrary in the festival’s opening trailer shown before each screening. Sundance might once have been a spot where you could see work that you couldn’t see anywhere else, but with so many movies already poised for distribution, everyone will have the ability to see them in the coming year. That is a great thing for the filmmakers and audiences who will enjoy such well made films, but where is the heady experimentation or shock or freshly inspired work?"