One
week and counting…..the 2001 edition of the Sundance Film Festival begins next
week as the official kick-off to the film season, and one can feel the tension
mounting as filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and PR agencies work against
the clock to get their media campaigns ready for the big unveiling.



Perhaps because it comes so quickly on the heels of the relaxed Christmas-New
Year's period when the industry is at its lowest ebb, the Festival always seems
to catch one unawares. We've known about the lineup since the first week of
December, but somehow it is these two precious weeks, between the final drunken
chorus of Auld Lang Syne and the mass migration to Park City, that all things
fall into place (or don't).



Filmmakers are still scrambling at this late date to assemble their sales and
promotion teams. Film laboratories are dealing with rush orders and last minute
crises to deliver a literally wet film print for a world premiere showing. Distributors
are using their most persuasive charms to try and preview the films on video
before even getting on the airplane.



Sandy Dubowski, the producer and director of Trembling Before God, a
controversial documentary about gays and lesbians in the Orthodox Jewish community,
that is making its world premiere in the Documentary competiton, spun a typical
tale. "The day after the announcements were made, I was deluged with hundreds
of calls from every distributor, programmer and PR agency. After six years of
working on the project, this was a surprise, but a welcome one."



Distributors clamored to view the documentary on video, but Dubowski stood firm.
"I want to have it shown to its best advantage, on a film screen with a live
audience". Coming to Sundance for the first time, Dubowski has assembled a strong
sales and promotion team and plans a number of unique events, including what
must be the first Orthodox Sabbath Service conducted at Sundance, led by gay
orthodox rabbi Dr. David Greenberg "It's a minor miracle that a film on this
topic even exists", Dubowski exclaimed. "I'm not nervous, just excited by all
the attention."



Chris Munch, whose film Sleepy Time Gal is in the Drama Competition,
is no stranger to Sundance. His first film The Hours and Times screened
in 1992 and won a Special Jury Prize. His second film, the lyrical Color
of A Brisk and Leaping Day, screened in 1996 and received Best Cinematography
honors.



"I haven't been to the Festival for five years and it certainly has grown",
Munch said. "While I am honored to be selected and certainly welcome more people
seeing the film, I am realistic and don't hang my hopes on any one festival."
Munch added. The film, which stars Jacqueline Bisset as a woman facing death
who longs to reconnect with her daughter, is the kind of personal and idiosyncratic
project that Sundance has always championed. "While the market atmosphere of
the event has become more critical, the Festival programmers are still dedicated
to their original vision of presenting quality independent work". Munch and
his star will be in Sundance to promote the film.



For programmers, the Festival's diverse lineup is both exciting and exhausting.
Having to negotiate between nearly 200 films at 10 different screening locations
at a ski resort clogged with ski bunnies and gawking tourists, presents its
own unique challenges.



Mark Fishkin, Executive Director of the Rafael Film Center and Director of the
Mill Valley Film Festival, has been coming to Sundance since year one. "Of course
it's changed from its early years", Fishkin reminisced, "it's become more of
a challenge to navigate and is not the cozy, intimate place it once was." However,
the world and international premieres of so many American and international
films makes it a must-attend event. "Now that we have a full year facility with
three screens, we are actively looking at more films, films that don't necessarily
yet have American distribution", Fishkin offered.



The needs of his Film Center and Film Festival have made him particularly interested
in the World Cinema section and the Documentary competition. Among the films
that Fishkin said he is most anticipating are Intimacy, the sex comedy
drama by French director Patrick Chereau screening in the Premieres section,
and Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antartic, a documentary recounting
of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated expedition to Antartica in 1914, directed
by George Butler, screening in the Documentary Competiton.



For distributors, Sundance is a non-stop marathon of film viewing, aggressive
wooing and heated negotiations as companies large and small look to the capture
the rights to the handful of films with true commercial potential. Although
the bidding wars (with their accompanying shouting and even shoving matches)
have cooled considerably, each distribution team is poised to go head to head
with their competitors to sign up the most desirable films.



"This year should be quite active", quoted one industry veteran who will be
repping almost a dozen projects at the Festival. "With the exception of a few
films that already have distribution, the field is more wide open than usual",
he observed. "More films are coming straight out of the box, with very little
advance word on them", the veteran commented, "so the distributors will certainly
be circling".



Dylan Leiner, Executive VP of Acquisitions for Sony Pictures Classics (which
has released such Sundance favorites as Slacker, Welcome To The Dollhouse
and others) feels that this year "there seems to be more of an emphasis on the
films rather than the deals". While he personally tracks hundreds of projects
during the year, there were still a number of films that took him by surprise.
"Some films are finding independent or international financing and get made
without a US distribution deal in place", Leiner added.



Sundance is a major event for the company, with the launch of three films screening
in the World Cinema section: Brother
(Japan), directed by Takeshi Kitano; Me
You Them (Brazil) directed by Andrucha Waddington; and The
Road Home (China) directed by Zhang Yimou. Leiner's only reservation
about the event is the media focus on the commercial rather than the artistic
side of the Festival. "Sundance is essentially a huge press junket", Leiner
declared, "so it perhaps is a good idea for independent filmmakers to have their
distribution deals in place before the Festival so they can maximize on the
exposure".



Among the films screening in the Drama Competition that are figuring high on
distributors lists are The Believer, directed by Henry Bean, about a
young Jewish man who renounces his faith and becomes a neo Nazi; The Deep
End, a thriller about a family's murderous secret, co-directed by Scott
McGehee and David Siegel; Green Dragon, a historical drama about Vietnamese
refugees in the California in the 1970s directed by Timothy Linh Bui; and MacArthur
Park, a moving story about a homeless man who confronts his past, directed
by Billy Wirth.



In the Premieres section, a number of films not yet picked up that US distributors
are actively tracking include Double Whammy, a police drama directed
by Tom DiCillo (Living In Oblivion), the Michael Apted political thriller
Enigma; Nobody's Baby, a hilarious felons-adopt-a-baby satire
directed by David Selter; Things Behind The Sun, a moody thriller set
in the rock and roll music world, directed by Allison Anders (Gas, Food and
Lodging); and Waking Life, an animated feature of a young man's search
for the meaning of life, directed by the original slacker himself Richard Linklater
(Slacker).

Still
on the road to Sundance

Sundance Site

Sandy
Mandelberger