By the time Tia Lessin and Carl Deal got to Louisiana to start TROUBLE THE WATER, they had years of experience under their collective belts. Lessin had worked with documentary filmmakers Charles Guggenheim and Arthur Dong before joining forces with Michael Moore, for whom she served a producer on his two television shows. Her filmmaking partner Carl Deal had been a broadcast journalist before meeting Lessin on BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE.

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Courtney Hunt shooting FROZEN RIVER

Courtney Hunt first heard the story of Native Americans smuggling merchandise over the frozen St. Lawrence river – an anecdote that would become the basis for her 2008 Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Grand Jury Prize FROZEN RIVER [frozenriverthemovie.com] – more than ten years ago. She had just graduated from Columbia’s MFA program and her 20-minute short ALTHEA FAUGHT had been picked up by PBS’s “American Playhouse.” Hunt had traveled to the New York/Canadian border, talked to the local Mohawk tribe about the conditions they lived in and the reality of smuggling cigarettes, and then wrote her screenplay. But as Hunt remembers, “no one in the mid 90s was interested in stories of women on the Canadian Border.”

After 9/11, when the vulnerability of American borders was reaching a national crisis, Hunt did believe her film might be worth revisiting. However the conditions were different. Not only was there increased border surveillance, but the smuggling had changed – it was no longer cigarettes, but illegal immigrants, primarily Chinese men and women, trying to get across the border. Hunt reworked the story, and then discovered her lead Melissa Leo, when the actress showed up for a screening of 21 GRAMS at the Columbia County film festival in upstate New York. By 2004, Hunt had a 15-minute short that premiered at the New York Film Festival. But it would still take another two years of hunting down funds before Hunt would start production under sub-zero conditions by the Mohawk Indian reservation. After 24 very cold days, working with many non-professional and native actors, Hunt had the film that would win a Sundance Grand Jury Prize in the can.

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Peter Bowen

Editor, FilmInFocus.com

Every year, one actress is anointed the queen of Sundance. First it was Parker Posey, then Christina Ricci, Patricia Clarkson, and now, Melonie Diaz. The 23-year-old actress who is still in school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts has already had several Sundance Films (in 2003 with RAISING VICTOR VARGAS and in 2006 with A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS). This year, Ms. Diaz in four films, as well as being a juror on the Short Film Competition.

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This year the Alfred P. Sloan award, which is bestowed on “a feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character,” went this year to Alex Rivera’s SLEEP DEALER. The jury – which included filmmaker Michael Polish, technology writer Evan I. Schwartz [www.harpercollins.com], Benedict Schwegler (chief scientist of Walt Disney Imagineering), John Underkoffler (Oblong Industries), and Alan Alda –– recognized the film “for its visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy rife with fundamental challenges and opportunities, and for its powerful and original storytelling and direction.”

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As blogs and papers are rushing to get out their Sundance round up, I turn to the local Park Record’s “Police Blotter” [www.parkrecord.com] for the inside scoop of what really happened this week. Here is just a sampling of the week that was.

“At 9:22 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 19, a man told the police he woke up at his place on the 100 block of Park Avenue and found a woman sleeping on a couch. She was combative and drunk, the police say, and she was taken to a hospital.”

“An officer warned a person against projecting a film onto a wall on the 400 block of Main Street at 3:47 a.m.”

“Two men stormed a theater on the 2200 block of Sidewinder Drive, the police say, and they refused to leave. They later left.”

“The police twice warned people on the 500 block of Main Street to remove a banner advertising a brand of vodka from an apartment.”

Luckily neither the fashion police, nor taste squad, was on duty this week.

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Peter Bowen

Editor, FilmInFocus.com

Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim arrived at Sundance in 2001 with STARTUP.COM [www.phfilms.com], a harrowing study of ambition gone mad in the dot.com economy that she directed with veteran filmmaker Chris Hegedus. Three years later she returned with THE CONTROL ROOM [www.noujaimfilms.com], a provocative look at Al-Jazeera, the Arab-speaking television network, to see how the Iraq war looked from an Arab point of view. Born in Cairo of Egyptian Lebanese, Syrian and American descent, Noujaim knows first hand how truth is the sum of different and often conflicting perspectives. So when Noujaim won the 2006 TED Prize [www.ted.com], an honor bestowed by TED [www.ted.com] (Technology, Entertainment, Design) which grants the recipient $100, 000 and one wish, she asked to allow different global perspectives to be brought together. Her idea will manifest itself on May 10, 2008 as Pangea Day [www.pangeaday.org], a global event during which, as the organization explains, “sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be video conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.”

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We are continually told that Sundance is for the filmmakers. True enough, but at Dolly’s Bookstore on Main Street it is also for the authors. Right next to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory – in case reading makes you hungry – Dolly’s takes advantage of the film festival by stocking up on film books and roping in authors for signings and readings. In recent years, producer Christine Vachon A Killer’s Life, Roger Ebert and others have showed up with their books. Manager Sue Fassett sets out to find literary connections the minute the Festival issued their line up.

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The Sundance Film Festival turned quiet and mournful as the news of Heath Ledger’s death started showing up on computers and blackberries across Park City. Whispers spread through crowds at theaters as smiling faces suddenly became downcast. On Main Street, all I could hear was people on cell phones saying, “oh my God, have you heard. I can’t believe it.” While Heath Ledger’s work touched the world, the independent film world, many of who have worked with him, have felt his passing even more so.

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After a weekend of documentaries taking center stage, at least in terms of Sundance acquisitions, distributors stepped up to acquire the first three narrative features of the festival. The newly formed Overture Films picked up Mark Pellington’s dark comedy HENRY POOLE IS HERE, about a dying man who suddenly regains his lust for life. Fox Searchlight acquired CHOKE, actor Clark Gregg’s directorial debut adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a man who fakes choking in restaurants to pay for his mother’s elderly care. But the big news was Focus Features purchase of Andrew Fleming’s HAMLET 2.

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Ari Gold has been to Sundance with three short films: FROG CROSSING in 1997, CULTURE in 1999, and HELICOPTER in 2001. He also came to Park City as an actor in the 2000 Festival feature GROOVE. This year Gold arrives at Sundance with his directorial feature debut; ADVENTURES OF POWER [www.adventuresofpower.com], unfolding the epic story of an air drummer on a mission.

1. Who’s dancing? Stop exchanging business cards for a few minutes, people.

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Marcus Hu is the co-president of Strand Releasing, which has distributed both theatrically and on DVD with a wide-range of films from the Sundance Film Festival. He shared a few observations about what hasn’t changed at Sundance.

1. Going to one of the most anticipated acquisition screenings and seeing the domino effect of execs fleeing.

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