Sundance Channel

A Banner Year for Sundance Film Festival Deals

Amy Reiter — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:52:59 +0000

On the final day of the Sundance Film Festival, the scorecard stands at 30. That’s how many films were picked up for domestic distribution during the festival. “This is probably the best in the last three years for films that actually sell during the festival,” Arianna Bocco, head of acquisitions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films in New York, told Crain's New York Business. “It's clear that it went from a buyer's market to a seller's market.”

Sundance Film Festival: Praise for HAPPY, HAPPY

Amy Reiter — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:10:37 +0000

For those who weren’t paying close attention, Anne Sewitsky’s HAPPY, HAPPY may have seemed to come out of nowhere when it collected the World Cinema Jury Prize for a dramatic film at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday night. But, in fact, the Norwegian film about love and infidelity had been quietly gathering glowing reviews.

Why Didn’t You Hear More About HOW TO DIE IN OREGON?

Amy Reiter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:32:29 +0000

The Sundance Film Festival jury obviously found much to admire about Peter D. Richardson’s HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, a documentary about physician-assisted suicide in a state where it is legal. After all, it presented the film with the festival’s Grand Jury Prize in the Documentary category on Saturday night. But audiences outside of Park City may not have heard a whole lot about the film.

Director Doug Liman Takes Our Questions

Amy Reiter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:39:55 +0000

Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam (L) and Director Doug Liman attend the Skoll Closing Dinner at the High West Distillery during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2011 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Filmmaker Doug Liman has tackled tough topics before: His recent film FAIR GAME, inspired by the experiences of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose cover was blown by a White House press leak, looks at the devastating consequences of unchecked political power. In RECKONING WITH TORTURE: MEMOS AND TESTIMONIES FROM THE ‘WAR ON TERROR,’ the special performance he teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union and PEN American Center, as well as the Sundance Film Festival, to present at this year’s festival, Liman again considers those consequences. In the hectic run-up to the event, he took a few minutes to answer SUNfiltered’s questions via email, sharing his thoughts on torture, secrecy and taking a stand.

Sundance Film Festival Awards: Who Won? What Did They Say?

Amy Reiter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:03:48 +0000

If you missed the Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony last night, no matter. You can experience it, minute by minute, for the first time or all over again, on the Sundance Film Festival's blog. Writer Eric Hynes fills you in not only on who won the awards, but who presented them, what award presenters and winners said, and even, in some cases, what they wore.

Sundance Film Festival Trend: Hard Times

Amy Reiter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:10:49 +0000

As the 2011 Sundance Film Festival heads into its awards ceremony tonight and then, tomorrow, its final day, the festival-film trends are still emerging. The Los Angeles Times’ Steven Zeitchik has spotted another one: economic hardship, which he calls “a veritable through-line” in many of this year’s selections.

Sundance Film Festival: RECKONING WITH TORTURE

Amy Reiter — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:33:59 +0000

The Sundance Film Festival is defined not only by the movies and parties and deals that so often grab headlines, but also by its social conscience. The festival provides an opportunity for the independent-film community to come together, to harness its power and creativity, to make a difference in the world, often in profound ways. In that spirit, filmmaker Doug Liman (THE BOURNE IDENTITY, MR. AND MRS. SMITH, FAIR GAME) has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union and PEN American Center, as well as the Sundance Film Festival, to present a special performance of RECKONING WITH TORTURE: MEMOS AND TESTIMONIES FROM THE ‘WAR ON TERROR.'

Sundance Film Festival: Surveying the Documentaries

Amy Reiter — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:48:45 +0000

Many worthy non-fiction films are vying for attention at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackling subjects as wide-ranging as extreme environmentalism (Marshall Curry’s IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT), pre-Web viral culture (Matthew Bate’s SHUT UP LITTLE MAN!: AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE), terminally ill people who legally choose to end their [...]

Sundance Film Festival: The Money Angle

Amy Reiter — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:08:35 +0000

While the majority of Sundance Film Festival observers have likely been focused on the emotional and artistic impact of this year’s festival films, as well as the larger the cultural implications, with brief pauses to note the deals being made, Bloomberg, understandably, is more interested in the money: the films that focus on it and the financing behind them.

Sundance Film Festival Deals: PARIAH

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:26:36 +0000

Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to PARIAH, Dee Rees’ coming-of-age film about a lesbian teenager in Brooklyn struggling to find her identity and a sense of belonging, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. (The film was executive produced by Spike Lee.) The deal, reportedly under $1 million, [...]

Sundance Film Festival: ANOTHER EARTH Wins Sloan Prize

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:37:16 +0000

Mike Cahill’s ANOTHER EARTH, which he co-wrote with Brit Marling, who also stars in the film, has been awarded the 2011 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Institute announced Friday. The prize is given to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character and has been awarded at the festival every year for the last nine years.

LIFE IN A DAY: The Filmmakers

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:59:39 +0000

If you missed LIFE IN A DAY, the Kevin Macdonald-directed, Ridley Scott-coproduced, global-input film about life all over the world on a single day, when it was screened on YouTube Thursday night, it looks like, if you live in the United States, you won’t be able to see a rebroadcast on Friday night at 7 [...]

Dargis: The Indie-Film Crisis Has Passed

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:39:35 +0000

The Sundance Film Festival and the American indie film scene it represents have endured ups and downs, flush times and lean, Hollywood love and industry belt-tightening. In recent years, as major studios shut or trimmed down their art house divisions and smaller companies went belly up, things were looking pretty bleak. But now, notes New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, the indie film world seems to have bounced back, and may be than ever. “Crisis was the name of the game, and then suddenly it wasn’t,” Dargis writes, continuing:

Sundance Film Festival Tells Stories of Love

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:09:08 +0000

Sometimes, love is all you need. “Watching two movies in a row in which adolescent girls cut their bodies with a razor was a reminder of all the dark places the Sundance Film Festival takes you,” writes Ruthe Stein in the San Francisco Chronicle. “This time there were movies featuring drug addicts, abusive cults, a drunken driver who wipes out a family and Saddam Hussein's sadistic son.” Stein says she found “a welcome reprieve” from all that in three festival movies about love: Drake Doremus’ LIKE CRAZY, Braden King’s HERE and Miranda July’s THE FUTURE.

LIFE IN A DAY Is Starting Soon!

Amy Reiter — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:47:09 +0000

Don’t forget to check out the LIFE IN A DAY screening and post-screening Q&A, which the Sundance Film Festival is live-streaming on YouTube starting at 8 p.m. EST Thursday night (tonight — in just a few minutes!). The 90-minute documentary, directed by Kevin Macdonald and executive produced by Ridley Scott, is a product of more [...]

Sundance Film Festival Review Roundup: THE DETAILS

Amy Reiter — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:55:47 +0000

The critical response to Jacob Aaron Estes’ dark comedy THE DETAILS, starring Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks and Laura Linney, among others, has been decidedly mixed. A sampling of reviews: “Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes' real accomplishment is successfully moving the tone of the movie from broad comedy to some serious business. THE DETAILS was picked up at Sundance by the Weinsteins, who should be able to use the picture's star power and savvy marketing to make it a date night conversation piece.” -- James Greenberg, The Hollywood Reporter

Sundance Film Festival Directors Poised to Break Through

Amy Reiter — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:29:33 +0000

Lots of critics are scrambling to tell you which films are poised for success following the Sundance Film Festival this year. Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke has compiled a list of heretofore under-the-radar directors whose names you might hear a lot more often from now on. On the list: ANOTHER EARTH director Mike Cahill; Paddy Considine, whose [...]

Sundance Institute Connects With Kickstarter, Facebook

Amy Reiter — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 18:57:46 +0000

Looks like it just got easier for new filmmakers to raise money and promote their projects. The Sundance Institute has announced plans to team up with online crowdfunding company Kickstarter to help the Institute’s artists and alumni – including lab participants, grant recipients and festival filmmakers – place their projects on Kickstarter.com with Sundance branding [...]

Sundance Film Festival Films Tackle Faith

Amy Reiter — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:54:45 +0000

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.

Sundance Film Festival Documentaries That ‘Expose and Inspire’

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:26:43 +0000

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 [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: THE DETAILS, PERFECT SENSE, THE GUARD, ANOTHER EARTH

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:45:25 +0000

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 [...]

Raves for Miranda July’s THE FUTURE

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:34:46 +0000

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, [...]

Ed Helms, Now and Then

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:20:18 +0000

“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 [...]

Robert Redford on Career ‘Irony’

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:22:54 +0000

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 [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS: A Film With Heart

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 03:36:45 +0000

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: [...]

And the Nominees Are … Sundance Film Festival Veterans

Amy Reiter — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:33:49 +0000

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 [...]

David O. Russell: From Ticket Taker to Oscar Nominee

Amy Reiter — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:51:17 +0000

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 [...]

THE SON OF NO ONE Gets Harsh Reception

Amy Reiter — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:57:01 +0000

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 [...]

AMC Covers the Sundance Film Festival

Amy Reiter — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:00:15 +0000

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 Happy ANOTHER HAPPY DAY Story

Amy Reiter — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:34:12 +0000

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 [...]

A Flurry of Sundance Film Festival Deals

Amy Reiter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:51:37 +0000

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 [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: HOMEWORK, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

Amy Reiter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:05:46 +0000

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 [...]

Sundance Film Festival: Chaz Bono Gets Standing O

Amy Reiter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:39:30 +0000

“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 Makes Waves With RED STATE

Amy Reiter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:59:45 +0000

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 [...]

Sundance Film Festival Review Roundup: THE GUARD

Amy Reiter — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:39:40 +0000

Another Sundance Film Festival movie getting good buzz: John Michael McDonagh’s Irish-inflected buddy-cop film THE GUARD, starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, which premiered Thursday night as part of the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Some critical responses: “It’s McDonagh’s wicked one-liners – and the skillful timing of Gleeson and Cheadle – that gives this [...]

Paul Rudd Tackles MY IDIOT BROTHER

Amy Reiter — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:50:26 +0000

With his MY IDIOT BROTHER, Jesse Peretz seeks to follow in the delicate footsteps of successful dramatic-comedy hybrids from past Sundance Film Festivals like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and “(500) DAYS OF SUMMER,” the Los Angeles Times notes. Paul Rudd plays the film’s bearded, Croc-wearing, granola-eating, idealistic title character, who works his way through the households [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: MARGIN CALL

Amy Reiter — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 20:55:08 +0000

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions announced Sunday that, following all-night negotiations, they had teamed up to acquire the domestic distribution rights to J.C. Chandor’s financial-industry thriller MARGIN CALL. The film, which officially debuts at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday, Jan. 25, but was screened for the press and members of the industry on Friday morning, [...]

Festival Parties: James Franco Channels Suzanne Somers

Amy Reiter — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:58:22 +0000

James Franco’s installation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, THREE’S COMPANY: THE DRAMA, sounds like something you have to experience firsthand to fully appreciate. In it, he seeks to examine the classic ‘70s sitcom, featuring those three kooky roomies Chrissy, Janet and Jack, by, according to the official description, “breaking out individual elements of narrative, [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: LIKE CRAZY

Amy Reiter — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:58:20 +0000

In what Entertainment Weekly is calling “the first big sale” at the Sundance Film Festival, Drake Doremus’s LIKE CRAZY got snatched up by Paramount Pictures on Saturday night following “an all-night bidding session.” The film, a long-distance love story starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones, from the director who brought the very different film DOUCHEBAG [...]

Spare a Thought for the Festival Screeners

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:57:26 +0000

With all the attention paid to the filmmakers, actors, and other Sundance Film Festival movers and shakers, won’t anyone take a moment to consider the unsung heroes of this and other film festivals, the screeners? The Los Angeles Times has. The paper notes that these dedicated workers sign up to watch hundreds of films of [...]

Harry Belafonte: ‘Take a Look at the History’

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:07:53 +0000

What prompted Harry Belafonte to throw his support behind a documentary about his life and the work he and others did to advance civil rights in the United States and around the world? At first, the 83-year-old singing/acting/activist icon wasn’t sure he was up for it. “It looked like self-indulgence,” he told Reuters. But as [...]

The Refreshing Candor of Elizabeth Olsen

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:01:11 +0000

And one more thing about Elizabeth Olsen, the 21-year-old younger sister of famous twins Mary-Kate and Ashley who stars in two buzzed-about films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the aforementioned (see previous post) MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE and the horror film SILENT HOUSE: Olsen, who goes by the nickname Lizzie and is being hailed [...]

The Making of MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:16:58 +0000

Here’s a curious (vaguely creepy) detail about the making of MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, directed by Sean Durkin and starring Elizabeth Olsen (in a breakout role — the New York Post is calling her “the new supernova in the Sundance galaxy”) as a girl who escapes from a cult in the Catskills and struggles to [...]

Sundance Film Festival Review Roundup: WIN WIN

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:40:29 +0000

Tom McCarthy’s WIN WIN, starring Paul Giamatti as a small-time New Jersey lawyer and high school wrestling coach who takes over guardianship of one of his elderly clients, is shaping up to be an early Sundance Film Festival favorite. Marshall Fine, writing in the Huffington Post, calls the film “touchingly funny” and says it features [...]

Where Do All the Women Directors Go?

Amy Reiter — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:26:25 +0000

So what’s with the continued disparity between the proportion of women directors represented at the Sundance Film Festival (27 of the 117 features screening at the festival this year were directed by women) and the number of women making big films in Hollywood (only three of 2010’s 100 top-grossing were made by women)? Brooks Barnes [...]

Sundance Film Festival: A Reinvention Destination

Amy Reiter — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:31:20 +0000

The Sundance Film Festival is many things to many people. And for some actors and filmmakers, the Los Angeles Times notes, it’s the place they go to reinvent themselves. Because so many show business eyes are focused on so few films, Sundance also can facilitate résumé rewrites. As the received wisdom goes, an appearance in [...]

THE SON OF NO ONE: Tracy Morgan Gets Serious

Amy Reiter — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:24:52 +0000

At the very beginning, a hint of the end. As the Sundance Film Festival gets rolling, a trailer for the festival’s closing night film, Dito Montiel’s THE SON OF NO ONE, has just been released. The picture stars Channing Tatum and Tracy Morgan as two men who got away with murder as young boys and [...]

Sundance Film Festival: Brisk Business, Bargain Prices

Amy Reiter — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:33:40 +0000

If the flurry of pre-Sundance Film Festival acquisition deals has made you wonder if Hollywood was back in an indie-film shopping mood after the recession, the New York Times’ Brooks Barnes reports that, yes, wallets are open, but they’re a little less fat. Among other factors, the strong box-office performance of specialty films over the [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD

Amy Reiter — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:01:18 +0000

Morgan Spurlock’s THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD has sold. On Thursday, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions announced that it had snapped up the U.S. and Canadian rights to the documentary, which is set to have its world premiere Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival, the Hollywood Reporter reports. The film, in which the SUPER SIZE ME [...]

Redford: No Plans to Retire

Amy Reiter — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:52:53 +0000

It honestly hadn’t occurred to us to be concerned that Robert Redford might retire and hand over the Sundance Film Festival reins anytime soon, but now we really don’t have to worry about it. In response to a reporter’s inquiry about retirement plans at the opening press conference for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival on [...]