Advertisement
Park City 2003
 |
| When asked to rate Sundance on a scale of 1 to 10, MM’s Festival Beat respondents gave it an average score of 28. |
Dates: January 15-25, 2004
Submission Deadlines: Late Sept., early Oct.
Website: www.sundance.org
The lines were long at Sundance 2003 as nearly 20,000 visitors and some 14,000 locals filled the streets of an otherwise quaint Park City, Utah. Along with the weather, the mood was sunnier this year. Last year’s Sundance suffered in the shadows of September 11th, while the Winter Olympics happening in the neighboring Salt Lake City took some of the festival’s spotlight away.
Though the buying was less frenzied at Sundance 2003, some of the festival’s original charm was present at the House of Doc panels, where film critic B. Ruby Rich held court on contemporary queer cinema while Albert Maysles eloquently explained his reservations about Michael Moore’s confrontational film style. The fabulous Holly Hunter, whose film Levity opened the festival, won the well-deserved Independent Vision Award while other indie favorites like actress Patricia Clarkson who, with four films at the festival (All the Real Girls, Pieces of April, The Station Agent and The Baroness and the Pig), won long overdue acting accolades from the Sundance jury.
There was no Blair Witch Project at Sundance 2003, but the studio heads continued to pay up. Lions Gate bought the Las Vegas thriller, The Cooler, with Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy and Joey Fatone, for a cool $1.5 million. Paramount Classics paid $2 million for United States of Leland, a controversial story about an affluent, 16-year old boy who kills a mentally retarded boy. Pieces of April, a touching comedy starring Katie Holmes about a young girl who tries to reunite her dysfunctional family for Thanksgiving, went to United Artist for a whopping $3.5 million. Newmarket Films purchased this year’s Grand Jury Prize Winner, American Splendor, a film based on the life and work of artist Harvey Pekar, for an undisclosed sum of money.
Most of the other 124 feature films, like Jane Anderson’s Normal, about a Midwestern family dealing with a member’s sexual identity crisis, were lucky to attract cable companies like HBO, Showtime or IFC. The docs covered a range of topics, from The Pill to The Murder of Emmett Till. But with PBS being the strongest buyer on the market today, the bulk of this year’s successful docs featured the more polite PBS style, where an omnipotent voiceover guides the viewer through a historical narrative cut with talking head interviews.
 |
| Chris Fisher’s Nightstalker. |
All in all, Sundance 2003 was a mixed bag. On the one hand, Sundance 2003 was the off-Hollywood premier that everyone says the festival’s become (the Park City police had to control the crowd looking to catch a glimpse of J. Lo and Ben at the HBO party at Harry O’s on Main Street). Besides MAC and a host of other cosmetic companies, Mercedes was also at this year’s festival to promote its new SUV to the celebrities who clogged the already tight parking lots with these bus-sized vehicles.
And lest we forget the Hollywood executives… The cell phone Mafia was undeniably present at Sundance 2003. On the other hand, Sundance 2003 also meant long conversations over dinner, drinks or coffee with strangers from all over the world who really do love the movies and can articulately explain why.
At the heart of it, Sundance is still a community of people utterly devoted to independent cinema. Especially with the addition of the remarkable World Cinema category, Sundance 2003 proved that despite the overkill, the hype and the negative buzz, there’s life in them there hills.
When asked to rate the Sundance Film Festival on a 10-point scale (10 being the best), our Festival Beat respondents to our informal late January survey gave it an average score of 28. Okay, so maybe Kim Longinotto, who screened her documentary The Day I Will Never Forget, skewed the results a bit by giving it a 100, but that in itself is a remarkable statement for a festival that’s been derided by some as a sellout to Big Hollywood.
Of the many advantages of Sundance that its proponents cited, none was given more mention than publicity.
 |
| Kirsten Dunst and Billy Bob Thornton in Ed Solomon’s Sundance opener, Levity. |
"Sundance knows how to take care of its filmmakers," says Eric Escobar, whose short film Night Light had six sold-out screenings at this year’s festival. "Since [mine was] a short film, most of the other fests kind of lumped me in with all the other shorts and promoted us as a whole."
Sundance, says festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, "has helped usher in a new and unconventional group of writers and directors to the forefront of filmmaking, and has broadened the market for independently-produced films."
In an improvement over past years, "there was a brand new venue for documentaries," states Jennifer Chaiken, who appeared at Sundance with My Flesh and Blood, a doc feature she produced. "The venues have great sound, great projection, stadium seating—and the experience finally feels as you’d hope it would."
With overwhelming support from attendees and at least nine of this year’s films scoring distribution deals at press time, Sundance remains the preeminent film festival in the U.S.
Slamdance Film Festival
Dates: January, 2004
Website: www.slamdance.com
Apioneer of the "alternative festival" movement, after two years at the Silvermine, Slamdance returned to their original home at Main Street’s Treasure Mountain Inn in 2003. Though the move made for a decidedly less fancy venue, it did put the festival in the heart of all that Sundance foot traffic, attracting more than a handful of new attendees. In fact, their 2003 opening day box office exceeded all previous years by 100 percent.
| Boasting the motto "Give Independent Film Back to the People" TromaDance does everything it can to recognize no-budget and low-budget films. |
While other alternative fests are content to remain within their own niche, Slamdance organizers have been tenacious about raising their profile—and the scope of the movies and moviemakers they bring to Park City each year—while remaining faithful to their original mission of "independence." It’s a goal that was evidenced clearly this year, particularly in their choice of opening night film, with Kenneth Bowser’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (see pg. 22).
Some of the festival’s most popular films included former Mr. Show star Bob Odenkirk’s Melvin Goes to Dinner and Elliot Greenebaum’s Assisted Living, shot on location in a nursing home (using many of its residents as actors), which picked up the Grand Jury prize for best feature. Tom Putnam’s short film Tom Hits His Head, an agoraphobic comedy that won the Spirit of Slamdance Award; the documentary Long Gone, which intertwines the lives of six drifters who travel across the country in a seven-year period, scored a Best Documentary win for directors Jack Cahill and David Eberhardt, as well as the Kodak Vision award for cinematographer Greg Yolen.
Slamdunk Film Festival
Dates: January, 2004
Website: www.slamdunk.cc
Though it’s now just one stop on a worldwide map of screening locales, Park City, UT was where it all started for the Slamdunk team, and the mountain is still one place where they pull out all the stops.
The four-day event, which takes place at Harry O’s on Main Street, promotes quality over quantity—and we’re not just talking about the films. With a complete digital theater and an unbelievable sound system, moviemakers have long sung the praises of this fest’s attention to the technical side of their craft.
This year, those moviemakers included big winner
Ben Coccio, whose Zero Day, about a Columbine-like school
shooting, took home awards for Best Feature and Best Actor. On
a decidedly much lighter note, ’90s MTV icon Pauly Shore won
the audience’s favor—and Slamdunk’s Feature Audience Award—for
his semi-autobiographical You’ll Never Wiesz in this Town Again,
a guerilla-style comedy that made the most out of breaking the
rules of moviemaking. It also acquired what might be the most
eclectic "cameo" list ever assembled, from Heidi Fleiss and Todd
Bridges to Sean Penn and Chris Rock.
 |
| The Storytelling: Unplugged panel at Nodance was hosted by Chris Gore and featured a panel which included Mike Figgis, Forest Whitaker and DP Matthew Libatique. |
Nodance Film Festival
Dates: January, 2004
Submission Deadline: Late November, 2003
Website: www.nodance.com
It’s been six years since Nodance announced its arrival—and that of the digital revolution—onto the Park City scene, and 2003 proved to be a banner year for the world’s first DVD-projected film festival. A tribute to director Mike Figgis turned into a Timecode reunion when actress Salma Hayek turned up (from her cozy spot at Sundance where her directorial debut, The Maldonado Miracle, was premiering) to hand over the Free Spirit Award. Increasing the star power was actor/director Forest Whitaker, whose Spirit Dance Entertainment came aboard as this year’s presenting sponsor to help further the fest’s digital-focused mission.
"Having a DVD festival was a huge opportunity because we didn’t have to waste $30,000 on a film print," notes Bob Cesca, whose film The War Effort won the Audience Award at this year’s event. "I was able to take what I learned at the screenings and further polish the film without blowing all that money on printing."
"They paid for the cost of the DVD authoring and all screening expenses," says Scilla Andreen-Hernandez, co-producer of The Outpatient, which won this year’s Grand Jury Award for Best Feature. "No festival does that!"
Film Threat.com’s Chris Gore hosted a panel discussion that included Whitaker, Figgis, and cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Requiem For a Dream, Pi) called "Storytelling: Unplugged."
Nodance thrives on its reputation as a truly independent
festival. Jeremy Lerman, who premiered his film Nebraska
Supersonic at Nodance in 2001, agrees. "Were Clerks, Slacker and El Mariachi submitted today, Nodance is the only Park
City festival that would have the chutzpah to show them."
 |
| TromaDance Founder Lloyd Kaufman takes Park City, UT by storm. |
TromaDance Film Festival
Dates: January, 2004
Submission Deadline: December, 2003
Website: www.tromadance.com
Speaking of "chutzpah," there are few film festival founders that the term would be more applicable to than Troma Entertainment’s Lloyd Kaufman, whose TromaDance Film Festival made its fourth Park City appearance this year. As you might expect from an event that included the films Damn You, Mr. Bush, The Adventures of Fratman and Pledgeboy and Dud on its schedule, this is not your average night at the movies. Boasting the motto "Give Independent Film Back to the People," the organizers do everything they can to recognize no-budget and low budget films,including providingplaces to sleep for those moviemakers who need them. One significant distinction at TromaDance is the price: there are no entry fees for moviemakers or admission fees for any screenings or panel discussions (Nodance, too, has a policy of $0 screening fees).
"Not only do we promote the efforts of local businesses in their generous support of independent film," states festival director Jonathan Lees, "but we support the Salt Lake and Park City communities who want to be a part of the festival atmosphere without paying exorbitant festival fees."
Steve Herold, who screened his film Bum Runner at TromaDance this year, said that it’s the atmosphere at TromaDance
that sets it apart: "It was really fan based. The audience was
just there to have a good time, no BS about it. And from what
I could tell, they did." MM
SHARE THIS STORY |
TAGS |
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Reddit
YahooAdvertisement
COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
This story was published in the Spring 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Park City 2003
Order this issue | Subscribe to MM
Latest from the blog:
Beverly Hills Chihuahua is Leader of the Pack
New Disney family film Beverly Hills Chihuahua found its way to the top this past weekend, grossing an impressive $29 million. Last weekend's box office-topper, Eagle Eye, took the number two spot with $17.7 million. Michael Cera comedy Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist claimed number three with a gross of $12 million while number four went to the romantic Nights in Rodanthe (last week's number two) with $7.4 million. Rounding out the top five was Ed Harris' critically acclaimed Western Appaloosa. The buzzed-about How To Lose Friends & Alienate People came in well below expectations, making only $1.4 million and barely hanging on at number 19.
Posted 10.6.08 | Top of the Box Office | 1 comment
Other recent posts:
In Theaters Now: Blindness, Religulous, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist & More
Deepa Mehta Receives the Infinite Power of Story Award
Religulous Disbelief
Posts people are talking about:
SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS
