Documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner sat down recently for a chat with Millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman to discuss the decade-long odyssey she went through to produce her new documentary, We Live in Public—the story of internet pioneer Josh Harris and the late 1990’s project he spearheaded to monitor subjects voluntarily locked in a bunker for 30 days and air the results on what was then an embryonic version of the Web. The movie is competing in the 2009 Sundance documentary category.

CLICK HERE for their conversation. (Right click, Save as to download)

Before directing Superbad in 2007, Greg Mottola won the 1996 Slamdance competition with his debut film The Daytrippers. In between, he directed several episodes of Judd Apatow’s underappreciated TV show Undeclared as well as Arrested Development, and now he comes to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to premiere Adventureland, which he also wrote.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg as a college graduate working at a theme park, the shoot was somewhat autobiographical for Mottola, who says he’ll never shoot at a real amusement park again. “Let me put it this way—there was a lot of downtime while somebody was vomiting between takes,� he says. more

Millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman spoke just ahead of Sundance’s opening with award-winning documentary producer/director RJ Cutler about making his new film, The September Issue –a film documenting the creation of Vogue Magazine’s annual September issue, and the people behind that effort. The movie is having its World Premiere at Sundance, and competing in the Documentary category.

CLICK HERE for their conversation. (Right Click, Save As to download)

Gray skies persist and the big awards show arrives tomorrow night as Sundance 2008 draws to a close. Yet there are still surprises.
Last year I pulled out all the stops and attended thirty films in a week, my Sundance personal best. I took quiet pride in my diligence. Yet I still managed to miss Little Miss Sunshine and many other buzz-worthy films. Do the math and you’ll see why. If Sundance programs 120 films and I managed to see 30, then I’ve missed 75% of Sundance’s best programming despite my best efforts. That’s why it’s often hard to have a conversation here about what everyone’s seen in common. Often we haven’t. more

Park City’s weather continues its upswing, with optimistic blue skies, blinding daylight that makes snow banks dazzle like Hollywood teeth, and thin, icy mountain air that invigorates exposed skin and reveals your every breath.
No matter how good the films—and they are good this year–after being cooped up in the gloom of flickering shadows all day, a shot of cold air to the face is as bracing as a shot of strong spirits would be. Good thing, because the latter is a delicacy in Mondo Utah, where buying a round requires temporarily joining a club, usually for the duration of the imbibing.
Sundance is the ultimate temporary club membership, ten days of pretending that the world revolves around a resort festival of small films with limited commercial appeal. Where, absurdly, festival volunteers must shout, “Please turn off your Blackberries!� as the lights dim.
Not your Treos, your Motorolas, your iPhones… tellingly Blackberries are the official mobile communication tool of Hollywood, whose flying monkeys monitor Sundance premieres while compulsively stealing glances at their email in the dark—or is it the other way around? Do they really expect to find box office champions here? more

Director Sean Ellis and DP Angus Hudson sit on either side of me at the Filmmaker Lodge—Hudson, smart and earnest, Ellis, savvy and charismatic, with an actors expressiveness; they seem an unlikely team until they start trading thoughts about The Broken.

“I’ve never been so proud of something I’ve shot,� Hudson is saying, and that’s an understatement for what the pair accomplished visually. The two previously collaborated on Ellis’ short Cashback produced through Ridley Scott’s company RSA. But they had a much bigger canvas to fill on The Broken and an ambition to do something that has never been easy: scary movie that’s more atmosphere than gore.

Of course if anyone at this festival knows how to manipulate an image for atmosphere it’s Ellis, one of the world’s foremost fashion photographers, known for images that take their glamour from an almost impossible fluency with light and muscular storytelling that is often described as cinematic. It strikes me as he talks about the darkroom techniques of dodging and burning, as his hands make the familiar, urgent motions–shaping the volatile mix of chemicals and time–that he thinks reflexively, like a cinematographer. He describes making movies like making photographs, with the emphasis on making. more

By Darroch Greer

What do a junkie from Dublin, a bank robber from Spain, and war refugee from Afghanistan all have in common? They all competed in the Homeless World Cup, and documentary filmmaker Susan Koch was there to capture the action in Cape Town, South Africa, for her film Kicking It (which, reportedly, has been picked up by ESPN–click here for more info).

“I was reading a blog from the World Economic Forum almost two years ago, and I came across this item that mentioned the Homeless World Cup,� Koch says. “It was just wild and sounded so offbeat that I was intrigued, and so I started doing a little bit of research, because I like to do stories that are important, that mean something, but I also like to have an entertaining aspect to them. I thought this was great. It combines the most popular sport in the world with a very important issue of homelessness.�

Started in 2001 from an idea by a Scot and an Austrian, the Homeless World Cup is now an internationally recognized street soccer tournament. In 2006, 48 countries competed, bringing 500 homeless footballers to Cape Town for the big event. Though homeless, these players all wore their country’s colors proudly. This article will not tell you who won. more

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.�
-Mum

Next Sunday is a long time to wait to watch the short film Spider, which will be streaming for free on the Sundance 10 Shorts 10 Days page on Jan. 27. If you’re like me and you want to open all your presents early, the entire movie is embedded at the end of this post, courtesy Director Nash Edgerton and the millionaire boy geniuses who invented YouTube.

Something must be in the water Down Under because this is the second shocking black comedy from Australia in as many days. (Spencer Susser’s I Love Sarah Jane was covered yesterday.) Shot on location in Sydney, Spider was filmed on 16mm stock in 1:2.35, and later transferred to 35mm. Edgerton himself plays Jack, who is in the midst of a pretty serious fight with his girlfriend while she’s driving them both around the city.

The camera’s POV stays with Jack as he heads into a convenience store to buy some things in hopes of placating her. Watching him scan the shop quickly is like actually seeing the thought processes of a typical male (not that I would know anything about that). Since this is a short film and we don’t want to ruin the ending, we’ll just stop any mention of plot right there. Read On and see the entire film at Scene-Stealers.com

By Darroch Greer

Clark Gregg attended the Sundance Film Festival in 1999 as an actor, playing a transsexual.

“I’d been there as an actor a couple of times,� Gregg recalls. “Once with a movie called The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, the first feature by Tod Williams, who did Door in the Floor, and I found it tremendously moving. Watching the way his voice was supported there, and the way they helped him find a niche as a filmmaker. I said then – and I think it was eight or nine years ago – that somehow or another I want to have a story that I can bring back and share. So, it was quite moving to me to find that result at the end of all this.�

You might also know Gregg on television as the ex-husband, Richard Campbell, in The New Adventures of Old Christine. In addition to a long list of television and film roles, Gregg also wrote the screenplay for the Robert Zemeckis film What Lies Beneath. He has now adapted the novel Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, and has directed it for the big screen. Choke is in the Dramatic Competition at Sundance this year. more

By Darroch Greer

Sundance wouldn’t be Sundance without firmly keeping its foot in independent cinema. When the festival is literally overrun by Hollywood each January, and mainstream fare such as a Barry Levinson film has its premiere there, it is gratifying to see a film shot on video with no actors (save a 10-year-old) and edited in a garage competing in the Dramatic Competition.

Such is the case with Anthony (Chusy) Haney-Jardine’s Anywhere, USA, co-written with his wife, Jennifer MacDonald, starring their daughter, and shot in their hometown. Chusy, who is Venezuelan-American (his name rhymes with juicy), set out to make a subjective portrait of what he saw as his America.

“The presumption was that that take on America would somehow hold water, or at least other people would find entertainment in that portraiture,� Chusy says. “It’s not to me an all-encompassing portrait, it’s just a very personal portrait.� more