Press Release

Visit Films has acquired worldwide sales rights to David Russo’s Sundance comedy The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle. The film will have its world premiere on January 19th. Visit Films will commence international sales of the film at the upcoming European Film Market.

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle focuses on Dory who loses his job at a data-management company and can only find work as a janitor. It looks like his life is going down the drain. To make matters worse, he and his toilet-cleaning colleagues become unwitting guinea pigs in a misguided corporate experiment. But as a strange new life takes shape inside him, Dory learns that sometimes you don’t find meaning, meaning finds you. more

Yesterday I touched upon some of the reasons the air has been let out of Sundance’s balloon this year. And ballooned it has, for a decade. Today walking Main Street’s uncrowded sidewalks, devoid of the usual hypesters and scenesters, I’m thinking that this year’s soft attendance is a gift. And a sign that the Festival might want to recalibrate.

When the Sundance Institute took over the Festival 25 years ago, American independent films were 16mm, low-budget, and all but locked out of the box office. While chances of theatrical success remain as remote today as ever—admittedly there have been giant strides for documentary, Michael Moore’s body of work for example, or those penguins—digital technology with its protean reach, low entry cost and endlessly rising quality has at least leveled the playing field as far as production goes. more

Press Release

Nation’s Largest Pet Insurer Engages Sundance Audience To Raise Awareness On Pet Health Issues and Animal Adoption

Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) took its walk down the red carpet at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival with the debut of the “Pet Pad,” a first-time-ever animal awareness experience for celebrity guests attending the annual event.

Hoping to engage a high-profile audience of pet advocates and owners, VPI partnered with the Best Friends Animal Society to deliver a message of pet health and shelter animal adoption during the opening days of the 10-day celebrity-filled festival. Located within the exclusive “House of Hype” hospitality lounge, the “Pet Pad” offered invited guests an opportunity to visit with adoptable animals and ask for expert pet advice from Dr. Karen Halligan, best-selling author of What Every Pet Owner Should Know and judge on Animal Planet’s Groomer Has It. more

I started going to New Frontier on Main before it was called that, when it was just a warm, dark basement full of chilly festivalgoers and digital cameras and editing software. There were some classes, panel discussions, and no cell phone reception unless you went out the door and into the mall atrium (which now has signage announcing it as the “Cell Phone Atrium”).

Inside, it’s slicked up too—veering away from any trade show booth vibe and towards nightclub/art installation. One of the first big developments was to bring in the online shorts a few years ago; one of the most fun ways to warm up is to sit at one of the computers in the moody lighting and browse the shorts. From there you can move on to the video art installations, check out the irresistable “Artists and Scientists” segments, play with the “editing gloves”, and then choose from the Microcinema panels; some from Sony, Avid, and Panavision on technie stuff, plus issues-based panels with a timely focus on distribution. Oh, and you can see the entire Sony XDCAM lineup in one place. more

Shooting I Love You Phillip Morrs for Bad Santa directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, Xavier Perez’s biggest problem was the Louisiana rain and the summer light. In fact his toughest challenge never made it to the screen—a big shoot in Shreveport in the tank that conjured the storm in The Guardian. “It was pretty impressive,” says Perez of the tank and the logistics, “maybe it will be on the DVD.”

Two stocks: Kodak 5218 and 5229—one for the gentle colors at the beginning of the story and then a much more contrasty look as the true story of a love-crazed con (Jim Carrey) grows increasingly improbably in behalf of the beloved Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor).

As the light gets more contrasty, the camera movement gets increatingly dynamic, “frantic” is the word Perez uses for the feeling. But the angst was apparently all on screen. Perez credits the perfect collaboration with the directors; “we all had the same kind of mind and sense of humor.”

Premiered yesterday, continues Tues 9p.m. in Salt Lake at the Tower and at the Sundance Resort 6p.m. Saturday.

Swedish writer/director Patrik Eklund recently cut a show reel for a local magician and ended up with four hours of footage of the hapless man and—more importantly—an idea for a new short film. The result is Instead of Abracadabra, a very funny and sweet 22-minute short about a twentysomething slacker who lives with his parents and dreams of being a magician.

The trick up Eklund’s sleeve is recognizing that very important moment of suspense right before the magician plunges the sword into the box containing his volunteer. If a magician is truly awful, that person in the box really should be scared for their life. Since Tomas (Simon Berger) has already sent his mother to the hospital doing the same trick, the audience now knows that anything can happen. more

Stop-motion animation has been making a bit of a comeback recently. Despite the long hours it takes to put something together with this age-old animation technique, it can be a refreshing change of pace for viewers inundated with similar-looking computer animation and widespread CGI special effects.

Max Winston’s short film I Live in the Woods! is literally an eye-popping visual experience. It starts off with a feverish exclamation from a high-jumping, superpowered hillbilly about his love of the woods. It ends up being a hilariously violent and absurd romp that goes way beyond the forest and up to the heavens—not exactly what you’d expect from an animator who is currently working on a short film for Sesame Street. more

Many of the reviews of Thriller in Manila (which premiered in World Documentary Competition last Friday) mention the fact that it transcends expectations for a sports documentary (it revolves around the third Ali-Frazier right in Manila in 1975).

The credit for this of course goes to director John Dower, editor Nicholas Packer, DP Stephen Sanden and the team. But it also goes to Andrew MacKenzie, the producer at UK’s Channel 4 who provided the money. At least that’s how Dower explains it with a kind of wonder in his voice, as if still can’t believe he got to make a documentary with enough money. Money that bought a precious thing: pre-production.

Actually calling it pre-production doesn’t really describe it. Dower talks about going to the north Broad Street neighborhood in Philly, with no set plan, hanging out at Frazier’s boxing gym with the fragile, ferocious and mistrustful fighter. Dower walked the streets, met the now-gray-haired friends and witnesses, interviewed the fight participants including Ali’s acerbic doctor. He moved into the story. This is of course not unheard of in documentaries—but it is rarely budgeted for. more

Press Release

LIVEstyle Entertainment, the premier agency in North America for media-based event production and marketing, will once again take center stage during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. LIVEstyle Managing Partner Ryan Heil has teamed up with actor/DJ Danny Masterson and actor Chris Masterson to open Downstairs, the newest live event performance space on Main Street and the first celebrity-owned nightclub in the state of Utah. Located at 625 Main Street in Park City’s historic Old Town district, Downstairs will house LIVEstyle’s celebrated Film Lounge program sponsored by Stella Artois as well as the trailblazing Film Lounge Afterhours series sponsored by MySpace, Elite Model Management, Stella Artois, Vice Magazine, The Randolph at Broome, and Anywhere Road, beginning Friday, January 16th, through Friday, January 23rd. more

The Nature Between Us is in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Short category, but it’s the animated portion of the 5-minute film that takes it to a whole new level. Director William Campbell and his cohorts are part of a Los Angeles-based collective known as Team G Entertainment, and in cooperation with New York-based collective Superfad, Campbell has created a unique blend of highly stylized live-action and 3D computer animation that is masquerading as a lost VHS tape.

Looking like some sort of sick cross between In Living Color and Saved by the Bell, The Nature Between Us is colored in enough bright neon to make Speed Racer jealous. As the camera swings between cliques of graffiti artists, popular girls, and radical bike dudes, a laugh track underscores the artificialness of the “street scene” set around them. more