Sun is down, dance is done

The mental film blender of Sundance is now complete. We woke as if with a hangover, story lines and characters and moments all swirling together. Wolfed down the last of our groceries for breakfast, stuffed our things in the rental car, and staggered off to the airport. Fellow Sundance-goers could be seen snaking through the security lines, with a mildly lost look. It's all sort of reminiscent of the stagger through the parking lot after a major concert experience…what was that encore tune again?

Courage at the Close. My final day began with two of the highlight films of the festival for me. Freedom Riders and Restrepo, both of which detail people calling upon unimaginable courage - albeit at different times, for very different reasons.

We saw Freedom Riders, which I blogged about before, first thing in the morning, and followed that by Restrepo, a film about the deployment of a platoon of soldiers in the Korengal Valley, the most remote and dangerous place in Afghanistan. Vanity Fair contributors Sebastian Junger and Tim Heatherington each took five one-month trips there and spent the time living with and photographing these soldiers. The result is probably the most intimate document of either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars and the young soldiers fighting it. Truly remarkable and, thankfully, the film lets the soldiers speak for themselves and focuses only on their experience. Wider political and strategic questions are left for other discussions. The result is an invitation into a band of brothers and it's a truly remarkable experience. More on this film can be found here.

The Sundance Jury agreed as the film later won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary filmmaking. The complete results of the awards can be found here.

Thankfully Tom and I were able to see almost all of the award-winning films. Winter's Bones, which we both liked, won two awards. Well, plane is boarding, must go....

Doug

(The top shot is of Tom in the Salt Lake City airport doing his final compilation of film notes and ideas in preparation for our post-mortem CFF programming meeting on the flight home.)

A window into history

Tom and I saw Freedom Riders first thing this morning. Some incredible newly-found archival footage (courtesy of the FBI no less) marks this compelling film. A great window into the early days of the Kennedy administration as well as the civil rights movement. Includes some great interviews with the Freedom Riders themselves, the then governor of Alabama (John Patterson), and JFK Administration adviser John Seigenthaler.

Impressive as a window into history, but also as a testament to human courage in the face of almost certain violence. A keeper.

Doug

Down to the last dance

I can feel the festival simmering down. I will still have about five films on Saturday, but the energy of the town is bubbling down. Now that all of the films have been played at least twice, a lot of the deals have been done. So the dog and pony show of celebrities is pretty much over. But the one thing remaining is the awards.

Sundance is broken up into categories for international and domestic documentaries and features. There are also awards for shorts. So they leave these blank spots in the schedule that are audience favorites or juried winners. We have bought tickets for Saturday’s Juried Feature Award winner. We have no idea what the film is. We may have already seen it. I think we are both rooting for Winter Bone.

There are some favorites that we hope will win, but we also hope that it is a film we haven’t seen. This is just another example of the festival coming to an end.

I have had the best time this year. I have covered a lot of ground as far as sheer volume of screenings, but as importantly I have more than a dozen new contacts. I met so many interesting people this week. Directors, screenwriters, distributors, actors, and, of course, other film fans have all made this week fascinating. It is like a parallel world where ideas and the arts are king. I love it and feel very uplifted to be here. It is a real honor.

It is going to be great for CFF to have all these contacts. I will begin emailing all the films that I liked and start figuring out how to get in touch with the folks that I did not meet. The name of the game now is to get screener DVDs so I can have our programming committee get to work finding the best films for our community. If I have collected 10 business cards, Doug surely has double that number.

I saw a film that troubled me so deeply that I held my gut as I left the theater. It is called Shock Doctrine. It argues that the ideas of economist Milton Friedman have led to capitalism profiting off of disaster. Disaster comes in many guises--hurricanes, coup d’etats, and wars. The film purports that the leaders who rise out of these crisis moments are people like Donald Rumsfeld, Augusto Pinochet, Boris Yeltsin, Margaret Thatcher, the Russian oligarchs, and Paul Bremmer during the shock-and-awe period. It is a heady, compelling, and shocking film. If you want to know more, check it out here.

Sundance is just the start of a nine-month process that actually gets filmmakers and their films to come to our community. Even though I have another scintillating day ahead of me, I can feel the magic and mirth of Sundance coming down a notch. The race is coming to an end. We have been on fire. Entranced in the sorcery known as cinema.

Tom

Sundance: not just movies

Sundance also features lots of music--and theater, too. Here's a clip from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals at the Sundance Music Café.

Doug

(You might want to turn your volume down a bit before the clip starts.)

Swimmers at Sundance (again)

Yesterday I stopped by the Sundance Filmmakers Lodge--a sort of quiet resting place for filmmakers to get coffee and check email--and lo and behold Swimmers was playing on the Sundance Channel. Strange.

Doug

(Note: Doug wrote and directed Swimmers, which was nominated for a Humanitas Prize at Sundance and nabbed a New American Cinema Award in 2005.)

Guerilla art strikes Sundance

Graffitti purportedly by well-known reclusive artist Banksy, who has a surprise film here called Exit Through The Gift Shop, appeared throughout Park City prior to the festival.

Apparently Park City police spray-painted over much of it, but this one was saved because the building's owner liked it.

The mystery of Banksy is explained a bit here.

Doug

One of my favorites

This is Doug swapping cards with the director (left) Adriana Maggs and star, Tatiana Maslany, of Grown Up Movie Star.

This film is in my top three of the whole festival and I hope we can get it. A coming of age dramedy from Newfoundland.

Tom

Crazy film head

I love going to the movies. LOVE IT! So I have been taking in a few shows. Like five a day. I kid you not. Five freakin’ movies a day.

After a while you can’t tell what time of day it is anymore. I get so many thoughts swirling in my head and feelings gurgling in my belly that I start to speed up. Like no one will walk fast enough or talk fast enough to keep up with the great swirl. Just in the last two days, I have been to Pat Tillman’s funeral, the decimation of the Yanomami Indians by anthropologists, a Bromance called Douchebag, a Peruvian gay love story and a film about Jean Michel Basquiat. It is a total head spinner to try and digest this much culture. It is like putting your head inside a spinning dryer.

To keep it all straight, I keep a journal. It is small and black. I try to write in it after each screening. I write furiously so I don’t forget anything. It comes out in a stream-of-consciousness scrawl. With bullet points, plot points and character arcs. Everything is noted.

Tom

3D comes to Sundance

I saw a 3D movie. Yep, we had the goggles and looking behind me felt like a strange flash back to the ‘50s. But this was no regular 3D film, this was Cane Toad or what the filmmaker called “Avatoad.”

This was a very funny and trippy account of the species invasion of Cane Toads in Australia. They were brought to kill the grubs that were devouring the sugar crop, but now become pestilent on a biblical level in Eastern Australia.

Tom

Sundance & climate change

Sundance is concerned with climate change. I have seen more than a couple of documentaries this year that grapple with climate change. The base line seems to be, “Wow, we are all going to perish as a species in about 100 years.” Some films say it is a man-made phenomenon and can be reversed with drastic and immediate actions. Is it just a cycle in the earth’s cycle? One film, Climate Refugees, tries to put a human face on climate change and is predicting mass migrations of hundreds of millions of people from heightened water levels. They see Bangladesh and Indonesia going under first. The same film predicts that a scarcity of water will also cause mass migrations from northern Africa. The film also mentioned that there is an ever-growing desert that is just 100 miles from Beijing. See here for more on that.

So all this got me thinking. I flew roughly 2,000 miles to come to Sundance. I have a heated condo. I take the carbon spewing shuttle to every film. There is dissonance in my head; it is like sitting next to Noah building the boat and I am not lending him a hand.

Tom

Sundance rebels?

Before every film there is a bumper that exclaims the theme of this year’s festival. The word “rebel” seems to be it this year. Now I ask you, how could the institutional juggernaut of independent cinema be rebelling? What are they fighting against? Deals are being made. Stars are trotted about and the press corps dutifully snaps it all up. Big muckety-mucks from NY and LA are here. Lots of people are reading Variety and Independent Filmmaker. Sundance is THE MAN at this point. You can’t rebel because you are the man. You dictate and purvey your chosen ones.

Tom

The scuttlebutt on the shuttle bus

Probably a quarter of my time at the Sundance Film Festival is spent on the shuttles. In a way they are wonderful because you can chat with other film fanatics. All you have to say is, “Have you seen anything you liked?” You have an instant passionate 20-minute discussion on your hands. It is SO fun.

Some are industry types who see everything and are really articulate and you engage in a code dance of film references. Something like, “Well I agree that this reminded me of Jim Jarmusch’s last film, but don’t you think the script’s structure was more tapestry-like. You know like, Todd Solondz’s masterpiece Happiness?”

I am in Pig Heaven. It is a blast to banter about film with people who are totally enthusiastic and smart. I think it is my favorite part of the festival. Your stop comes and it is like leaving a wonderful meal 2/3 of the way through. My new best friend! Bye!

Tom

Greek tragedy from the Ozarks

Doug and I took in Winter’s Bone, a Gothic wonder that takes us into the ultra bleak world of Ozarkian mafia-like families. Blood ties can lead one into or out of violence when all that is possible is crystal meth labs, hunting squirrel for sustenance or escaping by joining the Army. The story follows a 17-year-old woman who is looking for her drug dealing father. He has disappeared. The way she finds him is right out of Greek Tragedy. Wonderful filmmaking. Here's more info.

Tom

Sundance fashion report

I ran into a local woman. I asked her about the infestation of her town of this phenomenon known as Sundance. Around 20,000 people descend on this small ski town. The traffic goes through the roof, restaurants are booked, and all these groovy people are completely lost and asking directions.

She said, “Oh yeah, we call ‘em P.I.Bs. You know, People in Black.” She rolled her eyes one notch short of complete derision. And it is true. To be a player you have to wear black. Pastels seem to be seriously looked down upon. Lightweights. Not in the tribe.

This brings me to my Sundance Fashion report. The arctic mini is hot. Uber hot, molten hot. With black leggings and boots with furry fringe that go up the calf. To really put the cherry on top, the ladies have to have an adorable hat. Not a frumpy ski hat, something more like Jack London meets the catwalk. The knitted Greek fisherman’s cap seems big this year. Pretty much everyone wears boots because one is walking in slush all day.

Here's a shot of Doug de rigueur.

Tom

Bright snow, dark world

As I slogged through the snow after my last film last night, I overheard a conversation about the bleak subject matter of Sundance documentaries: "So our government is full of corrupt liars, we're all on the verge of massive environmental devastation, refugees will soon overwhelm vast parts of the world and if that doesn't kill us, we're going to get nuked."

It's true. Documentaries at Sundance offer a tour of intractable global problems and this year is no different.

Last night it was Countdown to Zero, a film which makes a strong case for the increased probability of nuclear disaster given hair-trigger launch systems and poorly guarded enriched uranium, particularly in the former USSR. There's nothing like staring at nuclear blast ground zero grid maps of my new hometown of New York while a narrator intones the physical impact of a nuclear blast on buildings and the human body to bring on a restful night's sleep.

Fortunately, this morning I was treated to a tonic of sorts. Bilal's Stand is a remarkable and touching community-built film about the dreams of a young man who is part of a family taxi-cab company in Detroit. The film's rough edges and humanity make up a huge part of its charm.

I followed that up with His & Hers, an Irish film which details women's experiences with the men in their lives--fathers, boyfriends, husbands and sons--in a most elegant and understated way. Hard to describe but wonderful.

And then there was GASLAND, a great call to action about the impact of free-for-all natural gas exploration and its devastating impact on watersheds and drinking water across the country. Told with humor (and great banjo playing), it's a powerful unmasking of the downsides of natural gas--the pollution and water contamination caused by hydraulic fracking (ingesting millions of gallons of toxic chemicals and water into the ground). Not to give anything away, but the chemicals tend to seep into water and cause major health and environmental calamities.

I'm now taking a break from the world's troubles to stare at the snow out the window. Tomorrow I face down a documentary on Jack Abramoff. Tonight (if I can rally) is the story of Islamic youth who just want to dig into punk rock.

Doug

Pals reunite at Sundance

Maryland Film Festival Director and CFF Film Advisory Board Member Jed Dietz reunited with old friend Joan Rivers.

It turns out Jed was an NBC page for the “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and was able to get together with his sometime boss Joan Rivers at Sundance after the screening of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Jed thought the film was amazing, incredibly honest. I'm still trying to see it. By the way, Jed is blogging the festival, too, so if you want more about Sundance, check out the Maryland Film Festival blog here.

Doug

Films, parties, snow, little sleep

This morning at 9 a.m. I settled into a theater seat with a cup of coffee when a gentleman from Estonia introduced his film by telling us to "get ready for two hours of depressing, bleak, black-and-white film. Feel free to laugh, if for no other reason than to stir your blood." Ah yes! What a way to start the day.

So where are we here at Sundance? About the mid-point, I guess. And whether it's the fact that the pace has picked up or we've found our film going rhythm or that Tom's big blog update was lost, it seems like there's a lot to update. A few parties, Ricki Lake, Elton John rumors, Maryland Film Festival Director Jed Dietz, Joan Rivers, and, oh, films!

Tom and I've seen two particularly good ones together - Grown Up Movie Star and Winter's Bone. Interestingly enough, they shared some common traits. In particular, a specific connection with the place where they were filmed, always a unique and remarkable thing in film. When it works, the experience of a film can move beyond being set in a generic "city" or "small town" and become a true geographical as well as an emotional journey. In this case, both films also featured casts that were made up largely of actors from the same region, giving them an even stronger sense of place.

Grown Up Movie Star is the story of a family in upheaval set in Newfoundland Canada, anchored by a remarkable performance from Tatiana Maslany (you'll be hearing more from her). A very real and visceral journey through the arc of a teenage girl’s "rough period" when sexual awakening and rebellion become the order of the day. The brutal, windswept landscape lent a certain desperation and isolation to the characters, sharpening their hunger for the far-off, unreachable Disney World feel, sharp and poignant. We spoke with both the star and the writer-director, Adrianna Maggs, after the film, so who knows? Perhaps we'll be able to secure the film for CFF.

Winter's Bone was the next morning. The story of 17-year-old Rhee's desperate journey through family loyalties and secrets in backwoods Missouri mountain country...filled with startlingly strong performances, particularly from Jennifer Lawrence (Rhee) and John Hawkes (Dead Wood, etc.) as her dangerous, loyal uncle. Some friends and acquaintances on the team--editor Affonso Goncalves, actor John Hawkes, production designer Mark White, so it was great to see such strong work from them all.

Other films include Skateland, a charmer about a group of high school friends coming of age in the 80s. Very well received, great music. I'm guessing you'll be hearing more about this one. Last night, Tom saw Cane Toads, a documentary about (what else?) toads. In 3-D no less!

At the Sundance Channel party, I spent some time with Maryland Film Festival Director Jed Dietz, learned about his connection to Joan Rivers (more about that--with photo--later), and had a nice chat with the head of the Sundance Institute Feature Filmmaking Program, Michelle Satter, as well as with Christian Vesper of the Sundance Channel. Heard that Elton John was at the party (didn't see him) and bumped into Ricki Lake. Jed introduced us and snapped a pic. Later that evening I found myself at another party. This one for the launch of a company that does...internet something. After an hour of eating hors d’ouvres and drinking their beer, I can tell you that the company is deeply invested in the next generation of revolutionary web something or other. Stuff that's going to change everything about film. Or not. Tired, I polished off the day with Russian Lessons, a full-blast documentary indictment of Vladimir Putin and Russian motives and means in the recent war with Georgia and beyond. Wrenching stuff.

Today Tom saw a documentary on Pat Tillman, and I tried, but was unable to get into Restrepo, a documentary about a year in the life of the 2nd Platoon in Afghanistan. I did speak with one of the directors and I'll try again Saturday.

And so it goes. Thus far, we've only had one moment where we realized we were in for a long ride. During one film in particular, I predicted to Tom that it was going to take forever to end the film. Sure enough, all major points of the film were summarized once more. At the time, I guessed it would have three endings, but it actually managed four. As for the dark two-hour black and white film I started today with, it was actually pretty remarkable. Stunning images--unlike anything I've seen, a reminder of film's broadly expressive potential beyond straight narrative.

Enough from me. I know Tom has seen all sorts of others and has many thoughts and some photos to share, so I'll encourage him to jump back on here ASAP.

Doug

Sure is quiet out there...

Pity Tom McCall. He spent a solid hour yesterday writing a detailed blog of our activities and the whole Sundance scene--including a survey of current Sundance fashion (boots and short skirts), "People in Black," and all the trapping of the hipster set (the definition of which he stretched to include even us)--not to mention an overview of the last two days of films.

AND THEN he lost the email!! One of those maddening computer moments when it all disappears into irretrievable techno ether. So pity Tom McCall, and please understand our recent silence. The pace has intensified.

More soon!

Doug

Trash=art=great film

Hello from Sundance!

I just saw Waste Land, an amazing film about an artist named Vik Muniz. He goes to garbage dumps and begins making art out of garbage and, in the process, uplifting the lives of the dignified but super poor garbage workers.

I cried twice. The power of art to change peoples lives. The power of a culture's thrown-away objects to uplift people when they change their perceptions of what they are looking at.

Here's a link to the film.

Tom

On the mend

Just wanted to thank everyone for their concern about my illness. Thankfully, it was short-lived. I'm feeling mostly human and back on track at Sundance. Just finished lunch with my old friend and editor, Affonso Goncalves, who has two films in dramatic competition in the festival (Winter's Bone and Night Catches Us).

The photos show proof of my recovery.

After a slow morning and some chicken soup, I'm now off to see my first film. Tom is somewhere about Park City, soaking in the films. We meet later for a foreign film at the classic Egyptian on Main Street.

Doug Sadler

First star sighting!

Ten feet from my hotel room, I saw my first star! Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Where the Wild Things Are). He was chatting with his lady.

After waking in the five o'clock hour, we made it to BWI on time. Poor Doug is really sick. Like get-out-the-barf-bag sick. The poor guy looks grey. There can't be too many fluids left. I have been anointing myself with hand sanitizer like somebody with OCD. Can't get sick at Sundance. This is the big dance!

I went to pick up tickets at the booth. I could make necklaces out of all the movies we are going to see this week. Hard hitting docs, dramas, Philip Seymour Hoffman's new directorial debut, and even an experimental film about consciousness and the state of the world.

I am like a kid in a candy shop. I can feel the buzz when I walk around the snow-covered streets. Pretty women with clipboards manage parties and who gets in. I crane my neck discreetly looking for which stars are being trotted out just beyond my eyes. What's all the buzz about?

So here are a couple of shots from day one. Doug started out sleepy and it went downhill from there. We have movies to watch tomorrow, so we both agree there is…

…no time to be ill.

Wish us well.

Tom

The adventure begins

Like many great American adventurers before us (think fish caught, mountains climbed), ours began with two men meeting in a parking lot before sunrise. Then driving to the airport. Here's Tom at pre-dawn BWI.

Doug Sadler

"I needed a mission...."

I am in a full lather. What to pack? Do I have my CFF business cards? Should I bother getting a hair cut? Any last minute contacts to make before heading out there?

I just got Hurt Locker from Netflix. Now I can watch that on the plane going across Ohio! I bet it wins an Oscar or two.

I will just be happy when we are in the car tomorrow morning at 5:30 heading to BWI. All the planning will be in place and we can just take it as it comes.

I feel so blessed to be going as a film attaché for our little town. Bring back the goods, young man! That is my mission, to bring back the smartest, coolest, funniest films of 2010. What a mission! I feel like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. "I needed a mission and for all my sins they give me one."

Must get back to packing. Energy bars?

Tom McCall

Some thoughts about Sundance

All kinds of media are spouting off about Sundance and I am getting excited to get out there past the hype. Basically, what CFF does best is find really smart films that have been orphaned by the commercial juggernaut. We bring films to light that will NOT be playing at a theater near you. Often times that means not having mega wattage star power like Kristen Stewart, but I love CFF's programming niche because we don't have to make money. We just have to compel, challenge and delight our audience. It is cinema for the pure sake of its delight. We don't offer a market to sell in or a deal to get rich in. We just show great films to an eager audience. The purity of this thrills me.

There is so much bull in the film business. It is an awful Darwinian business. Everyone says, "Yes, of course, love to do it." The translation of that is "No way, not interested." When we make connections after screenings at Sundance, we aren't offering any fiscal payoff. We are offering a smart community that loves film and will fill the seats. Our community will roll out into the streets and talk about the films, not the hair styles or box office takes.

So I go with a renewed sense of purpose to find great stories.

Tom McCall

Trailer for GASLAND

Who doesn't like trailers. Here's one for GASLAND, one of the films Doug and Tom will see at Sundance.

What's not in a name?

Movie titles alone can be intriguing. We assume that filmmakers labor--maybe even heatedly--over how to encapsulate tremendous amounts of time, energy, and financial resources into a word or a phrase to formally tag the final production. One never knows if the choice was right until the film is viewed. And sometimes it doesn't matter--the film defines the title. At any rate, CFF's Doug and Tom have some interesting titles in store for them at Sundance:

Climate Refugees

Winter's Bone

Obselidia

Imperialists Are Still Alive!

Splice

Sympathy for Delicious

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radi

Douchebag

Smash His Camera

Contracorriente

GASLAND

Secrets of the Tribe

Holy Rollers

Shock Doctrine

Seat cushions & long lines

As he readies for the upcoming Sundance, Tom recalls scenes from last year’s.

“There is the almighty tickets chain that is like a link of sausages. Also, for most of the films, there is a wait and being treated like cattle is not unheard of, unless you are a VIP and then you are swept magically past hoi polloi. A typical night scene on the main strip in Park City will feature fine dining, drunk kids, and great films. They all seem to go together. One constant is the scheduling dilemma--go to two mediocre films or catch that one great one that makes the day. That is a no brainer for CFF--always go for quality. Pictured is the famous and funky Egyptian Theater. You can feel the Indie good vibes emanating from every worn seat cushion. Oh yeah, baby, you're at Sundance now.”

A 20-minute frenzy

Sundance has a way of pumping the adrenaline, even before you put a foot in Park City. Tom has this to say about assembling the film itinerary:

“I am in a sweaty lather after having completed my ticket purchase at Sundance. Out of 200 films you get 20 picks in 20 minutes. Of course, there were technical problems as movie after movie is selling out. I get a very nice young woman on the phone who is helpful. We stack up 19 films and she says, ‘Run it or they will sell out!’ A decision must be made quickly. Run it!

"I am pleased. We got some keepers. Art, sports, anthropology, dramas and docs. A good spread to keep us busy.

"After a full day of preparation, the die is cast. It is never what you think it will be, but at least we have a whole bunch of films to see.”

Saddling up for Sundance

Chesapeake Film Festival 2010's Board members and visionary factotums Tom McCall and Doug Sadler are preparing to join the throngs at the annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, later this month. They'll be sending daily feeds about who and what they see, their impressions of the films, and their takes on the premier showcase for new films by many of the world's best indie filmmakers. They'll be keeping an eye out for movies to feature at this year's Chesapeake Film Festival, set for Sept. 24-26.

An early report from Tom, who is still in Talbot County gearing up for the trip:

"Hello Film Lovers!

I am frantically going through lists and lists of films that I would love to see at Sundance. Hard-hitting international docs to romantic comedies to cheesy post modern horror. It's all there. But much to my horror, it is hard to get tickets. Even though I registered in the ticket lottery a month ago, all the hot tix are taken. So here comes the creative part...how to still see some good films that I didn't initially pick? 8:30 am screenings are less popular with the party crowd. Midnight screeners are also less popular. I can piece this together!

There is also a vibrant black market outside of every screening. So to the bold go the spoils.

Wish me luck!

Tom"