Park City returned to normal today—or so I assume, having returned to NYC—as media outlets around the country concluded their Sundance coverage with the obligatory wrap-ups, run-downs and (generally gloomy) analysis. During the festival, there was much talk of the “buyer’s market.” The usual feeding frenzy was little more than a whisper this year, reported the Times, while the Boston Globe proclaimed the festival as good as dead.

Such hyperbole was inevitable. For all this talk of hope in American politics, the reality remains that the economy is in worse shape than Mickey Rourke at the end of THE WRESTLER. And yet, the notion that market forces and antiquated distribution models spell the death of independent film is going a bit far, don’t you think? Yes, it was a relatively slow, quiet year at Sundance. No one debates that. But we should all take a collective deep breath. The economy will rebound eventually, and new distribution models—video-on-demand for now, possibly online viewing in the future—will replace the old ones.

Lost amidst the sky-is-falling scenarios are the films themselves—their evaluation as works of art rather than commodities. The consensus seems to be that the overall quality of this year’s movies—from the Premieres category to Spectrum, Frontier, and Midnight—was exceptionally high. Heading into awards night, no film was an obvious lock for a prize, and worthy entries like BIG FAN and BOY INTERRUPTED went home empty-handed. I saw several strong films, and yet only one of them, ADAM, won a prize. From a moviegoer’s perspective, it was a very good year indeed.

Charlyne Yi, after winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award along with co-writer Nicholas Jasenovec, said on Saturday night, “Who knows what will happen to our films, but at least they were seen!” It’s a nice, and true, sentiment. But of course the films need to sell if filmmakers like Yi and Jasenovec, whose PAPER HEART remains homeless (as does three-time winner PUSH), want their work to be seen by a wider audience. To that end, here’s a very unofficial list of the Sundance films that landed deals (and for how much, if reported):

YOU WON’T MISS ME (Visit Films)
TYSON (Sony Classics)
AMREEKA (Entertainment One)
RUDO Y CURSI (Sony Classics)
BURMA VJ (HBO TV; Film Forum in NY)
BROTHERS AT WAR (Samuel Goldwyn)
WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE (P.O.V. (PBS) TV)
EL GENERAL (P.O.V. (PBS) TV )
COLD SOULS (E1 Films)
BROOKLYN’S FINEST (Senator Distribution) — $3 million
KIMJONGILIA (Visit Films)
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE (Visit Films)
HUMPDAY (Magnolia VOD) — $100,000
BLACK DYNAMITE (Sony Worldwide Acquisitions Group) — $2 million
ADAM (Fox Searchlight) — $1.5 million
THE WINNING SEASON (Lionsgate) $2 million
AN EDUCATION (Sony Classics) — $3-$4 million
DEAD SNOW (IFC Films)
IN THE LOOP (IFC Films)
SPREAD (Anchor Bay) — $3.5-4 million
MOON (Sony Classics)
ART & COPY (Arthouse Films)

Lastly, although I haven’t seen any reports about the deal, director Cary Fukunaga told me on Saturday night that his film SIN NOMBRE was picked up by Focus Features. That’s great news to me, as it’s one of the many movies I wanted to see this year but missed—an annual regret that was particularly deep this year, further proving that Sundance is far from dead.

Maybe because I’d already been to so many Sundance parties, or because I couldn’t imagine the Racquet Club as an awards hall, or because I’m allergic to hype—whatever the reason, I was skeptical about the closing night ceremony.

That changed the second I stepped off the Theater Loop bus. Greeters were everywhere, all of them exceedingly polite and smiling, some even in tuxedos, guiding me through the red-tape maze on the floor. It was a breeze; the biggest event at Sundance, and yet not a single line. Imagine that. The only two times I even had to stop (from strutting) were at the press table and the coat check.

Somehow, the awards hall’s designers had turned a bunch of tennis courts into a classy joint. Black curtains formed the perimeter of the hall, while silky white drapery, lit violet and billowing in the draft, hid the steel columns. Spotlights swirled everywhere, accompanied by surprisingly good electronic and hip-hop music. Add to that the white-padded ceiling and everyone’s fluorescent green wristbands, glowing like fireflies under the black lights, and the ceremony had the look of a rave in a space shuttle hangar.

After an hour of open bar and noshing—the mini hamburgers, the only true finger food there, went fast while everything else stagnated—the attendees took their seats for the first award, the Alfred P. Sloan Prize for outstanding science- or technology-related film, given to ADAM. “Going once, going twice,” said the presenter…

…but no one from ADAM was there to accept the prize. It wouldn’t be the last time: About a quarter of the winners weren’t there.

Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore provided one of the night’s more memorable moments, his hoarse voice straining as he addressed the future of independent film—which some say is facing tough times.

“The future isn’t clear,” he said. “It really is uncertain. The independent arena will change and needs to change in order to prosper…. It has to change because there are too many good films that have to be seen by people everywhere, and we have to work out a way for that to happen.”

By the end of his rousing speech, he was practically shouting.

And now some notable winners’ moments:

—After PAPER HEART won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, co-screenwriter Nicholas Jasenovec admitted to the crowd that he and Charlyne Yi wrote only about five pages of script for the film—the rest having been improvised. Yi, meanwhile, said, “Hi, um, I feel sick, I’m sweaty and I smell bad.” Apparently that was funny enough to warrant referencing by two later winners.

—Activist Rick O’Barry, the subject of environmental thriller THE COVE, provided the night’s most controversial moment when, after the documentary won the audience award, he singled out Japanese broadcaster (and Sundance sponsor) NHK and demanded they end the “media blackout” on stories about whale and dolphin hunting. “Ask NHK to please allow the Japanese people to see this movie,” he said. “We love Japan and we love the Japanese people. They have the right to know the truth.” I couldn’t find the NHK rep in attendance to catch his reaction.

—PUSH director Lee Daniels, after winning the audience award for U.S. dramatic film, challenged Gilmore for the most passionate speech, saying, “This is so important to me because this is speaking for every minority that’s in Harlem, that’s in Detroit, that’s in Watts, that’s being abused, that can’t read, that’s obese, and that we turn our back on. And this is for every gay little boy and girl that’s being tortured. If I can do this shit, y‘all can do this shit.”

—Mike White, in presenting the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize (which also went to PUSH), began by saying, “I had a movie in competition here once, and there was some buzz that we would get an award, and the night of the awards one of the jurors got up and said, ‘The awards we’re giving tonight’—I won’t name names, but she said—‘the awards we’re giving tonight are the definitively best movies of the festival. And then we didn’t get any award. Her name started with a ‘J,’ and it ended in an ‘anet Maslin.’” His point, he said: If you don’t win, don’t blackball him like he has blackballed that jury “to this day.”

Fortunately, all of the winners heeded emcee Jane Lynch’s warning: “If you don’t move it along, I will.” (I hope someone from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was there taking notes.) Unsurprisingly, Obama was mentioned at least a half-dozen times, most prominently by the first speaker, Ken Brecher (executive director of the Sundance Institute), who said, “When we began this festival George Bush was the president of the United States, and we end it with Barack Obama.” I’ve never heard an audience hiss and boo with such fury.

(Just kidding.)

I watched the ceremony with the rest of the press near the food spread. Some of the reporters, squinting into their MacBooks, were obviously live-blogging. Others, like me, jotted down the occasional observation or quote into a notebook, but we were there as much for fun as business—which is to say, we drank on the job. After the ceremony, the chairs were whisked away, the DJ booth was moved to the stage (miraculously, without interrupting the music), and the hall turned into a legitimate dance party.

Having availed myself of many a free Stella, I bounded up to several filmmakers and ran my mouth off. I introduced myself to Cary Fukunaga (SIN NOMBRE), hoping to discuss our shared experience as students at Columbia’s School of the Arts. Problem was, Fukunaga had gone to NYU. Desperate to save the conversation, I told him I was eager to see his film because I too had spent a lot of time in Latin America—and, you know, we’re both gringos! He politely nodded his head until I shut myself up and shuffled off. (I hope he doesn’t have a blog.)

I also ran into BIG FAN director/writer Robert Siegel and explained my problem: As I explained in an earlier post, I wasn’t sure whether I should curse him or congratulate him for toying with me until the film’s penultimate scene. We agreed on the latter. Then I assured him there was a lot of buzz surrounding BIG FAN and said there was little doubt it would get picked up. Like I know anything about the movie business.

An hour later I left for the after-party at the Filmmaker’s Lodge. Outside, the unseasonal rain had changed over to snow, the flakes so large they floated down like leaves.

And that’s when the chicken scratch in my notebook becomes completely illegible.

Faith Salie speaks with festival director of programming John Cooper about the moving films and the surprising events of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Presented by Honda, The Power of Dreams.

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Faith Salie talks with internation sales agent Charlotte Mickie about the fashion dos and don’ts during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Presented by Honda, The Power of Dreams.

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The filmmakers, actors, and celebrities come out to congratulate and celebrate all films and participants of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

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Faith Salie is joined by Kyle Buchanen, a film crictic from The Advocate. They discuss post-queer cinema during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Presented by Honda, The Power of Dreams.

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Faith Salie interviews sales agent Sarah Lash, producer Ron Yerxa, blogger Anne Thompson, and publicist Wellington Love about the business happenings and film buzz from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Presented by Honda, The Power of Dreams.

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Faith Salie speaks with director Bobcat Goldthwait and festival attendees on the streets of Park City about his film, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD.

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JONATHAN HARRIS

On the first day of the festival, I praised the exhibits at New Frontier and promised to return to the subject before Sundance ended. Well, the festival is almost over and, while I haven’t had the chance to view all of the exhibits, there are two that deserve special mention.

The first one, “The Casting” by Omer Fast, is a multi-screen exhibit in which a U.S. Army sergeant recalls both an affair with a woman and an accidental shooting in Iraq. Two double-sided screens hang side by side in a dark room: on one side, video of the sergeant and his interviewer; on the other, live action film of actors in frozen poses, the scenes pertaining the two stories the sergeant is telling to the interviewer. Much as Gregory Crewdson has pushed photography towards cinema, Fast has pushed cinema towards photography. I didn’t take many notes because I was so transfixed by the exhibit, so maybe it’s better you see it for yourself.

The second exhibit, “We Feel Fine” by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kemvar, is the best use of the internet to create art that I’ve ever seen (“Shoot an Iraqi” is a close second). Harris and Kemvar wrote a web crawler that searches Blogspot.com and other sites for the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling” plus one of 5,000 adjectives, and then aggregates that information (without the bloggers’ knowledge) and presents it in several ways—“murmurs,” “mounds,” “montage,” “mobs,” “metrics,” and “madness”—providing what Kemvar calls “the emotional temperature of the present.” To date, the four-year-old project has collected 12 million feelings. If a photo accompanies the blog post, it will appear along with the quoted line. I came across a blonde, bosomy young woman in a bra who had written, “I like to feel sexy knowing someone is watching me wanting me that turns me on.”

If only she knew.

HE IS SKIPPY

Maybe you’ve seen him loitering on Lower Main or outside the Egyptian, pocket digital in hand, with a bright I SEE FAMOUS PEOPLE t-shirt stretched over his ski jacket and a blue hat reading, “Sexy, Single, Fun. IAMSKIPPY.COM.” Maybe he even handed you a SKIPPY IS TOO HOT TO HANDLE oven mitt.

Yeah, you’ve seen him. Dude’s kind of hard to miss.

His real name is Scott Jessop, a 31-year-old Orem, Utah native who’s been coming to Sundance for the past five years—not to see movies, but to take pictures of himself with celebrities, then upload them to his website (which, lacking ads, earns him nothing). This year he has taken 100 such pictures, and doesn’t discriminate between A-list and D-list celebrities.

“I’ll even take photos of the sluts from Brett Michael’s ‘Rock of Love Bus,’” he said, “because you never know who’s going to be a fan.”

How does he do it? First and foremost, perseverance. All day, every day, he’s out there looking for celebrities. His strategy is simple. There are four things, he told me, that all celebrities have in common in Park City: shelter, food, interviews, movie premieres.

“I find it creepy to go where they sleep,” he said. Which leaves the other three. Increased barricades, however, have it harder to get stars to stop outside their movie premieres. “[Sundance] corrals us and doesn’t make it accessible for [the stars] to stop,” he said. “For those of us who stand outside for an hour, we often leave disappointed.” That’s why this year he has stuck to Main Street, waiting for celebrities as they come in and out of restaurants or interview studios.

When I asked him about the biggest celebrities he’s met this year, he reframed the criteria, saying that Christie Brinkley was the nicest female celebrity, and that Billy Bob Thornton was the nicest male. Not everyone is as kind, though. “There’s always a group of celebrities that will not stop,” he said, citing Uma Thurman, Mariah Carey and Robert Redford. “They’re such big names that they will not stop.”

Skippy—a Mormon who voted for Obama, in case you’re wondering—first came to Sundance as a “gopher boy” for HBO’s “Project Greenlight 2” and spent one day driving Ben Affleck and J.Lo around town. “I knew then and there that I’d go to Sundance every year,” he said. “I was like, ‘I am never missing this again.’”

He has tasted fame himself. At 24, he appeared on a short-lived MTV reality show called “FM Nation,” and two years ago he got his 15 seconds—literally—when “The Tonight Show” interviewed him for a “Man in the Street” segment at Sundance. This year, he says, he met someone who wants to make a documentary about him.

When he’s not at Sundance, Skippy is a “gopher boy”—I guess he’s good at it—at the Hampton Inn, while also studying for an associate degree in communications at Utah Valley University. Once he graduates, he wants to intern for “Extra” or “Access Hollywood.”

Though he spends most of his time chasing down celebrities, Skippy still gets to see a movie or two, and he certainly has his opinions about the programmatic changes at the festival. He thinks movies like THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT and BE KIND REWIND shouldn’t have screened at Sundance because they were slated for release shortly thereafter. “Sundance should be for movies like MYSTERY TEAM,” he said, “where you don’t know if it’s going to get picked up.” But he’s also glad there are less “slit-your-wrist movies” than there used to be.

“How many movies about vaginal mutilation can there be about up here?” he asked.

Faith Salie interviews FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN director Oliver Hirschbiegel and actors Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt in the Sundance Channel Studio. Presented by Honda, The Power of Dreams.

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