One notable trend amongst the films in this year’s Sundance Film Festival: faith.
The Los Angeles Times’ John Horn writes:
Among the roughly 120 features playing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, a surprisingly large number use faith — and specifically Christianity — as either a critical narrative fulcrum or a key expositional backdrop. And the dramas do not always take a neutral stance.
SUNcovered takes you beind the scenes of the 2011 Sundance FIlm Festival with Chase Sapphire. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
SUNcovered joins director Matthew Chapman for the premiere of THE LEDGE. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
Robert Redford sits down for an interview at the Honda Power of Dreams Studio, Sundance Channel HQ. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
The filmmakers behind the more than two dozen documentary films being showcased at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival may have different reasons for being there, notes Reuters’ Christine Kearney. “Some are competing for prizes and aiming to score distribution deals, others are seeking media hype to gain traction with audiences, and still more simply want…
The Sundance Film Festival deal-making continues. Recent acquisitions: IFC Films has nabbed the North American rights to director David Mackenzie’s romantic thriller PERFECT SENSE, starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, which debuted at the festival in the Premieres section on Monday night. (Just announced; see trailer below) The Weinstein Company has picked up the worldwide…
What is the Sundance Film Festival’s “buzziest film (so far)”? Miranda July’s THE FUTURE, according to The Week. These three rave reviews alone would seem to prove the point: “Miranda July’s THE FUTURE is narrated by a stray cat that mid-thirties couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) take in, and like that fragile kitty,…
“Is it too early to declare 2011 as the year of Ed Helms?” wonders the Hollywood Reporter, citing the former Daily Show correspondent’s first starring role in the warmly received comedy CEDAR RAPIDS, which just debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as roles in the forthcoming HANGOVER sequel and what is sure to…
You might be surprised to learn, as we were, that Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford, who has nurtured the work of countless filmmakers over the years, doesn’t have a scrum of those filmmakers clamoring to cast him in meaty roles. “I ask the question — I say, ‘Hey I’d like to be [in that…
Miguel Arteta’s CEDAR RAPIDS, which premiered Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival, is garnering positive, if not rapturous, reviews. General consensus: The insurance-industry fish-out-of-water comedy, which stars Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock Jr., is slight, but sturdy, sweet and funny, with a lot of heart. A sampling of responses:…
The cast of LITTLE BIRDS sits down for an interview at the Honda Power of Dreams Studio at Sundance Channel HQ. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the…
The cast of THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED sits down for an interview at the Honda Power of Dreams Studio, Sundance Channel HQ. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of…
About those Academy Award nominations announced this morning, Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has noted a trend: If you add up the number of [Oscar] nominations [for films] from last year’s [Sundance Film] festival — 14 all told — it’s a more impressive total than the dozen for THE KING’S SPEECH. The two…
Host Ellen Fox tours the Cosmopolitan Experience at Sundance Channel HQ. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
David O. Russell, who began his movie career as a Sundance Film Festival ticket taker in 1991, woke up today to find that his film THE FIGHTER had nabbed seven Academy Award nominations, including best picture and, for him, best director. It was a triumph for the filmmaker, who has experienced career ups and downs…
Despite an all-star cast featuring Al Pacino, Channing Tatum, Ray Liotta, Juliette Binoche and Katie Holmes and solid advance buzz, Dito Montiel’s THE SON OF NO ONE has been dubbed the 2011 Sundance Film Festival’s “first bomb.” At a screening for press and industry members on Monday, the crime drama, which is scheduled to close…
Kevin Smith protests the Westboro Baptist Church.
First there was the hype, then there was the letdown, and now, a day after Kevin Smith screened his latest film, RED STATE at Sundance, there is the residual anger. On Sunday, the CLERKS writer-director stunned audiences and film buyers alike by announcing that he was not, as promised, going to auction off the distribution rights to RED STATE, a movie he touted as a “horror movie” inspired by Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps.
Instead, Smith bought the rights himself, for twenty bucks, and said that in an act of anti-studio-system protest, he’d sell his own film, starting things off with a 15-city tour this summer. Smith’s disingenuousness was made all the worse by the overload of characteristic Smith hype that preceded RED STATE’s screening. (The protest/counter-protest outside the Eccles Theater being just one piece of his elaborate fabric.) Not helping matters is that the film, though loved by certain Smith die-hards, is generally considered a disappointment.
As you prowl around looking for Sundance Film Festival news, in between dashes from screening to screening in Park City or from blog to blog on your couch, permit us to point you to some of the nifty festival coverage on our sibling site AMC. AMC News will be blogging from the festival and will…
A meet-cute Sundance Film Festival story has the gossip press sighing: Ashton Kutcher reportedly surprised wife Demi Moore by showing up at a bash for Sam Levinson’s generally well-received ANOTHER HAPPY DAY, in which Moore stars with Ellen Barkin and Kate Bosworth. (The film debuted Sunday night in the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition.) According to…
Director Sean Durken’s goal to create films about women who have faced challenges results in Elizabeth Olsen’s break out performance. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011…
Sundance Film Festival teams up with Brita and Nalgene for the third annual FilterForGood campaign. Check out the party to promote reduced bottle waste, hosted by Sundance Channel HQ. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and…
More deals closed Monday at the Sundance Film Festival. Among them: Andrew Rossi’s PAGE ONE: A YEAR INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES: Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media have partnered to purchase the U.S. rights to the film, a documentary that takes viewers behind the scenes at the venerable broadsheet, with a theatrical release planned for this…
Fox Searchlight Pictures has snapped up two Sundance Film Festival films in rapid succession. On Sunday night, Fox Searchlight presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced that the company had acquired “most worldwide rights” to first-time filmmaker Gavin Wiesen’s HOMEWORK, a coming-of-age story starring Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Michael Angarano, Elizabeth Reaser, Rita Wilson, Sam…
“I was living life as a man trapped in a female shell,” Chaz Bono says in Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s documentary chronicling his gender reassignment, BECOMING CHAZ, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. “Now for the first time I’m living in my body.” Bono, who was greeted by a standing ovation…
Kevin Smith’s RED STATE, which opened at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday night amidst protests by the inflammatory Christian fundamentalist group that inspired it (and counter-protests, in which Smith himself participated), is “cleverly contrarian enough to get a rise out of almost any audience,” Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy writes in one of the…