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

Park City’s been overcast and gray since Day 1, but this morning a brilliant platinum light tore a hole in the endless cloud cover and ignited the overlooking Wasatch peaks, back-lighting a sparkly veil of glassy no-see-ums, tiny ice crystals too delicate to form flakes, that danced on wafts of air until they melted in my face.

Yes, I admit the night before I’d seen Academy-award nominee (Taxi to the Dark Side) Alex Gibney’s latest masterwork, Gonzo, the Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, but I deny any pharmaceutical inspiration, at least this early in the morning, as I stop before the Yarrow Hotel to marvel at this floaty, twinkly, sun-lit scrim. Inside the Yarrow a press screening of Morgan Spurlock’s latest saga-in-cheek, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, is almost underway, and I race into the theater to find a seat just as the lights fall.

Both docus, I’m happy to report, are polished to high theatrical sheen with eye-catching graphics, animated illustrations (the great Ralph Steadman in Gonzo), and well-crafted high-definition cinematography (D.P. Maryse Alberti in Gonzo). Both acquaint audiences with past and present avatars of U.S. politics: the tragic George McGovern, smarmy Richard Nixon, idealistic Jimmy Carter (Gonzo); the hubristic tag team of W. and Osama (Where in the World…). Both deserve and will likely obtain limited theatrical runs (though Sundance 2008 has been notably short of acquisitions so far). more

A charming, moving low-tech antidote to all the high-tech developments I’ve been covering today: Brent Green is a self-taught filmmaker who lives in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, and animates by photographing hand-drawn cels (numbers visible) and stop-motion wood-carvings with his Nikon D70. He edits these stills in iMovie.

At the New Frontier center, he showed his films and hollered the narration like Conor Oberst exorcising demons. The band Califone accompanied Green, perfectly fitting the haunting, raw, fantastic imagery. This one is Green’s favorite; it was mine too.

He’ll be doing the same thing at New Frontier (basement of 333 Main St.) on Sunday and Monday at 6:30pm, so don’t miss your chance to see some spontaneous live energy mixed in with the usual programmed entertainment.

Longtime New Zealand documentary filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly was in Sudan for her documentary on landmine fallout when she met an unusual woman on a quest to adopt Sudanese twins Madit and Mongor Akit. Over a period of months, the two women reconnected in Sudan, as journeys intertwined and a film process began. Brettkelly’s subject, Vanessa Beecroft, would turn out to be a famed international contemporary art star, iconoclastic and controversial. Brettkelly and DP Jake Bryant would follow her emotional, sometimes infuriating march towards imagined motherhood with their Sony Z1 kit and an open mind. Brettkelley’s interest in revealing the contradictions of international adoption came together with Beecroft’s extraordinary story of art and life and the result was, as documentaries often are, unexpected.

In a coffee shop at the Yarrow, Pietra recounts the remarkable evolution of her film’s visual style. more

Up front I have to set some context, though you’ll read more about this part of the story in the general press.Writer/director/actor Matthew Stanton is one of those Sundance Cinderella stories: theater guy from Loyola Marymount graduates with a story to tell, chases it for seven years, lives in his car to fund it, submits it to Sundance—no connections–a needle in a record-breaking haystack of submissions. North Starr’s unanimous selection for the Dramatic Competition is proof, Stanton says, that Sundance looks at every submission, no matter where it comes from. Proof that a Sundance film can come from nowhere.

Now, sitting in the lobby of the Yarrow, Stanton and his DP/Edtor Peter Levermann start to spin the tale of their collaboration, passing the story back and forth as their adventure together takes shape in words. more

I find Post Logic colorist Doug Delaney at 5pm, almost exactly 12 hours after he put the last flourish on Adventures of Power and pushed send on the print. He’s multi-tasking coffee and laundry; he’s had plenty of the one and run out of the other. Most of the people who work on the films here spend months if not years (even decades) of their lives on the projects. The DI colorist gets a few intense weeks in that special antechamber to reality where everyone shares the stressful truth: the movie will be finished, and soon. more

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival officially cut the ribbon as the opening credits rolled for the 6 pm MST showing of the Martin McDonagh directed feature, In Bruges.

To introduce the film and extend words of welcome to the wide range of this year’s festival goers, Sundance founder Robert Redford spoke to the audience of 1,100 packed snugly into the Eccles Theater.

Amidst political undertones, Redford’s opening address revolved around one specific word: change. He noted that this year’s festival served up an entree of films from artists of many non-film genres, more than ever before including poets, photographers, graphic designers, and even In Bruges director McDonagh–a well known playwright. more

Sundance loves short films. They say so and if you’re here you can see a lot of quality shorts. Same is true if you’re not here. For the first time Sundance is making their shorts program available for free worldwide (for both viewing and downloading).

You can start watching at www.sundance.org. Starting Monday you can download them at iTunes (www.itunes.com/sundance) presented by the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Channel. With 71 shorts chosen from among 4440 entries, odds are good there’s more than one worth watching.

Up later Sundance shortfilmmaker Be’ Garrett talks about his process on A Nick in Time.

New Frontier represents the evolution of the Frontier section exploring the experimental world of filmmaking. New Frontier is an expanded program that includes work from artists pushing the boundaries of art by using the moving image to create new cinematic modes of storytelling. This year‘s line-up includes a program of short films and seven feature-length films from four countries.

“Building on the Sundance Film Festival tradition of experimentation and innovation, this year‘s expanded NEW FRONTIER section will present a unique platform for both filmmakers and artists using the latest media technology,” says John Cooper, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival.

The films screening in New Frontier are: more