Day 9 - 28 January

Slamdance awards, Sundance awards tomorrow

Slamdance wound to a close on Friday night. Their well attended awards party was infinitely more exciting than this year's line up. Although the initial motivation for Slamdance was to create an anti-Sundance, the award titles sounds pretty familiar. The grand jury prize for best dramatic feature went to Good Housekeeping and the audience award went to Dolphins.

Good Housekeeping directed by Frank Novak features a white trash couple in a crumbling marriage fronted by a wife who drives a fork lift. Dolphins focuses on a woman in a mental institution who dreams of dolphins. Chris Wilcha directed the Documentary Award winner The Target Shoots First. Wilcha's film is a 2 year study of the music industry set during the grunge/Nirvana heyday.

Surprisingly, AtomFilms is turning out to be the most active distribution company at Sundance 2000. The hot dot.com company has acquired 5 films including Sarah Polley's Don't Look Twice. AtomFilms is currently considering purchasing 3 additional shorts.

A dearth of films have been picked up this year by the major indies. Miramax has been remarkably low key. Lions Gate and Sony Pictures Classics have been the most aggressive distributors. Yet, the scope of the films has been extraordinary. Gems were scattered across a wider spectrum in 2000. France's Human Resources was one highlight of World Cinema, The Ballad of Rambling Jack which focused on the early days of folk music rose to the top in the Documentary category, while Shadow Magic which chronicled the conflict between culture and technology was one of the impressive titles in the American Spectrum section.

On the party circuit, Friday night there were theme parties like Jamdance (with musical guests, The Cult), and Trip Dance. Even Playboy weighed in with their own early evening event. Around midnight, everything moved to the mountains. Vin Diesel (Saving Private Ryan, Boiler Room) hosted a party in his spacious 3 story condo. Stephen Baldwin was caught party hoping between Vin's place and the party down the street hosted by the producers of American Beauty. GenArt put on the party for Other Voices.

Saturday night is the Sundance awards dinner. The John Sayles produced film Girlfight seemingly has a lock on either the Audience Award or the Grand Jury Prize. The most impressive aspect of the Sundance Film Festival is that the Grand Jury Prize is rarely annointed to the film with the most obvious commercial value. Sex, Lies and Videotape, which was the most successful independently produced feature of its time, was an early Grand Prize winner. Our Song, a universal coming of age story about 3 African American teenage girls from Booklyn directed by 1996's Sundance winner Jim McKay, definitely has a shot at the top prize. Reportedly, Jonathan Demme was gushing about this film.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Rita Johnson

Sundance