Sundance Kick Off A Success

The first night of the Sundance Film Festival appears, by all accounts, to be a success, the scattered tweets about freezing temperatures notwithstanding. Be sure to follow Twitter for updates from the crowd (watch for #Sundance and #Sundance2011) and the countless blog/news pieces--reports are coming in fast! Here is the official Sundance Twitter list, with @'s for all of the films playing from now until the 30th: http://bit.ly/e9QdBK Follow your favorites and send some love.

Also be sure to follow @sundancefest, @sundancefestnow, and @filmfestconnect!

The short, Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul, which played last November at the Adventure Film Fest in Boulder, Colorado, helped to open Sundance today. It details, in the kids' own words, the lives of several teens in the ravaged Afghan city and the hope-encrusted joy they exhibit while riding:

"Idiot" Impresses Roger Ebert

In honor of the beauty of film (and the creativity of one New Yorker in the face of blizzard conditions), today's focus piece is the short, Idiot With A Tripod, by Jamie Stuart. Featured in Filmmaker Magazine and raved about by Roger Ebert in his 'Journal' at the Chicago Sun-Times, this piece shows incredible technical skill and artistic excellence.

"This film deserves to win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject," says Ebert.

Be sure to read Stuart's responses to Ebert's questions and see the piece from ITV in London at the end of Ebert's mini-review.

Sundance 2011: Two Must-have Festival Apps!

Sundance Film Fest app

Few events can cram as much entertainment into 10 days as the Sundance Film Festival. Given the logistics of trying to find one's way through it all during Park City's peak snow season, it's a relief to know there are myriad ways to survive and have a great time. For those that prefer the pocket-sized, interactive version, two helpful applications are now available for your SMART devices.

For the second year running, the Sundance Film Festival has developed its own app, with transportation info, survival tips, calendar planners for film and off-screen events, and ticket availability (updates will likely start when individual tickets go on sale on the 17th). Although it costs $4.99, this app is constantly being updated (seems like almost daily) with new content, including past festival shorts, filmmaker interviews, blog posts and photos. The shuttle schedule alone is worth its weight in gold...I'm sure the poor bus drivers who have to answer, "Does this bus go to [venue X]?" five bzillion times a day would agree.

Gowalla has also teamed up with the Sundance Film Festival to create a special Sundance event section, allowing visitors to check into festival venues using iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, or Palm devices.  Here are just a few of the event's "passport" stamps:

Users can log a photo, leave a note for a friend at a location to work out a meet-up, and create a personalized list of activities each day with the "Your Day at Sundance Film Festival" digest. You can even redeem your stamps and other app tokens for special prizes when you check in at select spots around Park City. (Film Fest Connect signed up today, so watch for us around town!)

Finally, don't forget to add Sundance to your Twitter feed using @sundancefestnow, @sundancefest, and the #Sundance hash tag. The Salt Lake Tribune also has detailed festival coverage--follow them daily on their @sundancelive feed.

This ought to be enough to keep you busy until the 20th. No? Well, stay tuned in, here, then!

Photos are the property of their respective owners--no copyright infringement intended.

Sundance 2011: From Director's Lab to Feature Film

The Sundance Institute is currently showcasing short films from festivals past and present on YouTube's Screening Room channel. But the shorts I found most interesting were those in the Director's Lab series, highlighting the projects of budding filmmakers in June of 2009. It's a very select few who get this opportunity: of the 3,000+ scripts that were submitted, that year, only 8 were chosen. If you've ever wondered what life is like at the Sundance Director's Lab, here's an inside look, from the first group introductions to the final script burning ceremony.

Filmmaker Andrew Okpeaha MacLean began his journey at the 2009 Director's Lab and is presenting his full-length feature, On the Ice at this year's festival:



Learn more about the film at ontheicemovie.com and browse through some fantastic production photos on MacLean's "On the Ice: Behind The Scenes..." blog. If you'd like to see the film at Sundance, here's more.

Sunny Escape: Palm Springs International Film Festival Starts Jan. 5th

Need a vacation from your vacation? If you're tired of rain and snow, or are looking for a post-holiday escape, the Palm Springs International Film Festival starts this Wednesday and should really hit its stride on Friday night. Billing itself as "the premier presenter of world cinema on the North American continent," PSIFF features films from Argentina to Ethiopia, from Vietnam to Uzbekistan. A number of the films being shown this year are award winners (the South Korean film, Shi, or "Poetry", won Best Screenplay honors for Lee Changdong at the Cannes Film Festival, this year). Son of Babylon, which plays this week, was one of my favorites from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival lineup (a Marine in the theater that night felt the film presented an accurate portrait of Iraq as he saw it, while stationed there; it certainly is a moving portrayal of the life of a Kurdish boy searching for his missing father in that war-torn country):



Many PSIFF films have already screened at other high-profile festivals around the world. PSIFF claims to show "a majority of the official international submissions to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Foreign Language Film." In other words, this is a great place to watch for Oscar contenders.

In addition to films, this year's "Talking Pictures" series focuses on actors considered to be Academy Awards frontrunners: after a screening of their films, Colin Firth, Javier Bardem, and Michael Douglas will each appear on stage for a live, in-depth interview.

There are also a number of filmmaker tributes scheduled for Saturday's Black Tie Awards Gala at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The following stars can be expected to appear on the red carpet, that night:

Jennifer Lawrence (Rising Star Award)
Carey Mulligan (Breakthrough Performance Award)
Javier Bardem (International Star Award)
Diane Warren (Frederick Loewe Music Award)
David O. Russell (Director of the Year Award)
Colin Firth (Desert Palm Achievement Actor Award)
Danny Boyle (Sonny Bono Visionary Award)
Natalie Portman (Desert Palm Achievement Actress Award)
Robert Duvall (Career Achievement Award)
Ben Affleck (Chairman's Award)
The Social Network (Ensemble Performance Award)

If nothing else, it should be a celebrity-watcher's dream weekend. Do try to see a film or two, though, will you?