OUR TOP 10 LISTS

While the majority of Sundance movies are set in the filmmaking hubs of New York City and Los Angeles or (given the popularity of suburban stories) in some generic could-be-anywhere nowhere, regionalism has always been an important element in American indie cinema. To wit, these 10 places (cities, states, regions) that have made for memorable settings over the years.

Author: Dennis Lim

10. Mississippi

It's the setting for Robert Altman's COOKIE'S FORTUNE, Mira Nair's MISSISSIPPI MASALA, and, most evocatively, Lance Hammer's BALLAST. Set in the Mississippi Delta in winter, an expanse of low gray skies and endless mud fields, BALLAST is a movie about place and atmosphere as much it is about story, regional filmmaking par excellence.

9. New Jersey

Strip-mall auteur Kevin Smith is New Jersey's most loyal son, but the Garden State is also backdrop to movies as diverse as Alan Taylor's PALOOKAVILLE, Todd Solondz's WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, and, of course, Zach Braff's GARDEN STATE.

8. Log Island

Home to America's original suburb (Levittown), Long Island also tends to be the most vividly drawn of indie cinema's myriad suburban locales. It's where JUDY BERLIN, TREES LOUNGE, and THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN take place, but the most distinctive of all Long Island movies are those of Hal Hartley (THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH, TRUST), known early in his career as "the Godard of Long Island." For the obligatory dark-side-of-suburbia portraits, see Michael Cuesta's L.I.E. and Andrew Jarecki's CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS.

7. Cleveland

In Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE, the hangdog trio start out in grungy lower Manhattan and end up in a Florida motel room; in between, there's a visit to Cleveland that occasions the film's funniest visual gag: Lake Erie, a frozen expanse of nothingness. Icon of rust-belt ruin, Cleveland is also the lifelong home of the underground comics icon Harvey Pekar, the subject of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's location-shot biopic AMERICAN SPLENDOR.

6. Montana

Travis Wilkerson's AN INJURY TO ONE and WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN are politically incisive portraits of Butte, Montana, past and present. Alex and Andrew Smith's THE SLAUGHTER RULE shows off the wide-open landscapes of the high plains, as does the Polish brothers' NORTHFOLK.

5. Louisiana

SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE unfolds in Steven Soderbergh's sleepy, sweaty hometown of Baton Rouge. Kasi Lemmons' EVE'S BAYOU and Jesse Peretz's FIRST LOVE LAST RITES take place in atmospheric bayou country. And after Katrina landed and the levees broke, indie filmmakers responded with stories of the devastation and recovery, among them John Magary's short THE SECOND LINE and Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's TROUBLE THE WATER, winner of the 2008 documentary grand jury prize.

4. The Pacific Northwest

Robinson Devor's POLICE BEAT is a fiction film that dramatizes actual police-blotter reports. His ZOO is a documentary that relies on impressionistic re-enactments. Both make the most of the verdant splendor of the Seattle area. Kelly Reichardt's Oregon-set OLD JOY captures both the beauty of the Cascadian forest and the progressive-enclave vibe of Portland.

3. Memphis

Ira Sachs's powerful debut THE DELTA offers a window into the rarely seen underbelly of his hometown, Memphis. In his follow-up, 40 SHADES OF BLUE, the blustery patriarch played by Rip Torn is one of the city's big-shot music producers. 40 SHADES OF BLUE won the grand jury prize in 2005, the same year Craig Brewer's hip-hop fable HUSTLE AND FLOW scored the festival's biggest distribution deal.

2. Texas

The 1985 festival featured two fine Texas films, the Coen brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE and Wim Wenders's PARIS, TEXAS. Richard Linklater's micro-budget debut SLACKER is, as much as anything, a valentine to his adopted hometown of Austin. San Antonio's Robert Rodriguez set his micro-budget debut EL MARIACHI on the Mexico-Texas border. And Houston-born Wes Anderson kicked off his career with the Texas-set short BOTTLE ROCKET, a Sundance selection in 1993, later expanded into his first feature.

1. Florida

Miami native Kelly Reichardt's RIVER OF GRASS is an outlaw romance that leaves the Bonnie and Clyde myth to wilt in the harsh South Florida sun. Julian Goldberger, a Florida State grad, set TRANS in Fort Myers and THE HAWK IS DYING in Gainsville. And the Sunshine State is also home to a pioneer of regional indie filmmaking, Victor Nunez, who has shot most of his films (including the Sundance hits RUBY IN PARADISE and ULEE's GOLD) in the Gulf Coast region.