The Sundance Film Festival—the annual showcase that’s become of increasing importance to the commercialmaking community in terms of finding new directorial talent and enabling spot directors to demonstrate their longform prowess—has set the slate of films for its 2000 edition. Scheduled for Jan 20-30 in Park City, the Sundance fest will screen 112 films, including 71 world premieres, 18 U.S. premieres and eight North American debuts. And for the first time, the festival will screen several projects shot on digital video. (Detailed info on the DV entries was pending at press time.)
Among the entries in the dramatic competition are: Beyond The Ocean, by first-time director Tony Pemberton; Shadow Tales, helmed by another first-timer, Isaac Eaton; Chuck and Buck, directed by Miguel Arteta, who has enjoyed past success at Sundance with Star Maps; Our Song, also a return to Sundance for director Jim McKay; Songcatcher, from another Sundance alum, director Maggie Greenwald; Other Voices, helmed by Dan McCormack; Blessed Art Thou from director Tim Disney; You Can Count On Me, directed by Kenneth Lonergan; The Tao of Steve, helmed by Jenniphr Goodman; Girlfight from director Karyn Kusama; Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, directed by Rob Schmidt; Drop Back Ten, directed by Stacy Cochran; and Urbania, directed by Jon Shear.
Entrants in the documentary competition include: Dark Days, directed by Marc Singer; Legacy from director Tod S. Lending; Sound and Fury, helmed by Josh Aronson; Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians, directed by Anne Makepeace; First Person Plural from helmer Deann Borshay; Stranger With A Camera, directed by Elizabeth Barret; Nuyorican Dream, directed by Laurie Collyer; Just, Melvin’ from director James Ronald Whitney; Paragraph 175 from filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman; Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, directed by Barak Goodman and Daniel Ankar; and Well Founded Fear, helmed by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini.
The field of films in the American Spectrum showcase—in which Sundance spotlights a mix of independent dramatic and documentary films in a non-competitive forum—contains such entries as: Dropping Out, directed by Mark Osborne, a spot veteran; Intern from director Michael Lange; Backroads, helmed by Shirley Cheechoo; Punks, directed by Patrik-Ian Polk; Spring Forward, directed by Tom Gilroy; Groove from director Greg Harrison; Panic, helmed by Henry Bromell; Shadow Magic, directed by Ann Hu; A Sign From God, directed by Greg Watkins; The Opportunist from director Myles Connell; Could Be Worse!, helmed by Zachary Stratis; Snow Days, directed by Adam Marcus; and Beat from director Gary Walkow.
And 65 shorts are scheduled to be screened during the Sundance Fest. They were selected from a field of 1,900 entries. This year’s shorts program competition includes: Architecture of Reassurance directed by Mike Mills, who helms commercials via The Directors Bureau, the Hollywood-based satellite of bicoastal HKM Productions; Girl Go Boom from director Mark Tiedermann whose spot home is Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago; Titler helmed by Jonathan Bekemeier who’s on the spot directing roster of Picture Park, Boston and Santa Monica; #11, a film from the Netherlands directed by Joost Rekveld; 6 Miles of 8 Feet directed by Ben Tomlin; Babie from director Jonathan Michals; Bats helmed by Jim Trainor; Billy Twist directed by Eva Aridjis; an Australian entry, Burnout, helmed by Gavin Barbey; Cheerleader Tales from director Jake Kons; Chicken Pox Pal helmed by Andrew Mudge; Conspiracy Rock directed by Scott Rosann; Crabgrass Manifesto from director Aldo Emiliano Velasco; Darling International directed by Jennifer Reeves; Das Clown helmed by Tom E. Brown; Deadline, another Australian entry, from director Nash Edgerton; Don’t Think Twice, a short from Canada directed by Sarah Polley; The Drowning Room directed by Patrtick Jolley and Reynold Reynolds; Every Day Here helmed by Frazer Bradshaw; Excesos De Cuidad, a short from Mexico directed by Jorge Luquin; Five Feet High and Rising helmed by Peter Sollett; Flight of the Stone, an entry from Germany directed by Susanne Horizon-Franzel; Friday directed by Jodi Gibson; G. directed by Rolf Gibbs; Grace helmed by Lorelei Pepi; Graham’s Diner directed by Courtney Byrd; Gray Matter helmed by Anthony Dominici; The Hat from directors Julia Jordan and Terry Stacey; Hitch by director Bradley Rust Gray; a New Zealand short, Hurtle, by director Shona McCullagh; Ice Fishing directed by Alexandra Kondracke; Imported helmed by Kevin Everson; In God We Trust directed by Jason Reitman; The Keening by directors Alex & Andrew Smith; King of the Jews helmed by Jay Rosenblatt; a U.K. entry, Little Dark Poet, from director Mike Booth; Los Gringos helmed by Rob Letterman; Picture Day by director Steven Bognar; Pleasures of Urban Decay directed by Samuel Ball; Walking Mele from director Anne Misawa; Wildest Show in the South: The Angola Prison Rodeo helmed by Simeon Soffer; The Window helmed by Jono Oliver; and Women Named Greta, Men Named Milo by director Lawrence Greenberg.
The Sundance Festival attracts 13,000-plus attendees. The Sundance Institute was founded by actor/director Robert Redford in ’81 as a means of promoting the development of independent voices and visions in the arts. The Sundance Institute conducts national and international labs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers and theatre artists, and presents independent film exhibition programs worldwide, including the Sundance Film Festival. The Institute also maintains the Sundance Collection at UCLA, a living archive of independent film.
