| Sundance 2001 | |
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Park City, Utah is abuzz. Sundance is here. Every day from now until January 28, there's gonna be a premiere, a party, a distributor making deals. Opening night started with a bang: the screening of Christine Lahti's first feature film My First Mister, starring Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks. The film already has a distributor (Paramount Classics) but you can be sure there are smaller films to be discovered. Last year, two wonderful films by relatively unknown, first-time filmmakers took home the Grand Jury Prize--Karyn Kusama's Girlfight and Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count On Me (my favorite film of the year 2000).
Many celebrated indie directors are returning to Sundance. Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) is back with two films: Waking Life, an animated feature about a young man's search for the meaning of life, and Tape, is a comedy drama about three friends who reunite ten years after finishing high school. Allison Anders, director of one of my sentimental favorites Gas Food Lodging offers her latest, Things Behind The Sun, set in the rock and roll music world. Plus there's Tom DiCillo whose 1995 Living In Oblivion made great fun of the trials and tribulations of independent filmmaking. His new film Double Whammy is (surprise, surprise) a police thriller starring Dennis Leary and Elizabeth Hurley. You know everyone looking out for America's angel, Drew Barrymore, who produced and also acts in Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko.
Actress Julianne Moore is to receive the Piper Heidsick Tribute to Independent Vision. Moore. In case you think of her as big Hollywood (remember Spielberg's Lost World or the upcoming Hannibal) just think about all those stunning performances in indie: Todd Haynes' Safe, Robert Altman's Short Cuts, Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights.
Robert Redford, by the way, founder of this great independent festval, can't be there this year. He's off filming a multimillion dollar picture with Brad Pitt.
Sundance 2001 Line Up:
Check back for daily updates, reviews of the films, deals made, and pictures of the stars....
