22 - 29 January - Park City

Slamdance awards Good Housekeeping and Dolphins

If Sundance broke little new ground, Slamdance remained the haven of cutting edge filmmaking with a far more international tone than ever before. A record year for attendance, with well over 7,000 audience attending main screenings; another 3,000 attending the filmmakers lounge fringe screenings, and over one million hits on the web site for Anarchy OnLine, brought the Slamdance brand to its widest-yet audience. Winners announced Saturday were Good Housekeeping (Grand Jury Award for Best Feature), Elevator World (Grand Jury for Best Short), Dolphins (Audience Feature Award), and Mutual Love Life (Audience Short Award).

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.

"We consider Slamdance 2000 a big success for a number of reasons," said Dan Mirvish, Slamdance Co-Founder. "Everything went smoothly from a technical standpoint; everyone stayed healthy (as compared to the 'Park City Virus' of 1999 which hospitalized or felled half the festival staff), and we created a filmmaker friendly vibe throughout the event.

"But even more noticeably," continued Mirvish, "it was an incredible group of filmmakers with a decidedly international perspective. Our increase in international submissions and festival screenings comes in large part from our 'on-the-road' events in Chile and at Cannes, as well as making our Internet web site the main contact for submissions. Also, if you consider that we aren't able to bring in any filmmakers on our dime, they have to bring themselves in, the fact that we have such a strong filmmaker presence at all the screenings speaks to the draw of the festival."

The Slamdance Film Festival closed with the World Premiere of Dwight Yoakam's directorial debut, the independent feature South of Heaven, West of Hell on 28 January in the Main Screening Room at the Treasure Mountain Inn. The film stars Dwight Yoakam as Valentine Casey, a bachelor Marshal in the desolate Tuscon territory of the early 1900's. The screening was followed by the Closing Night Award Ceremony at Cisero's.

Special Screenings & Lounge Films

Slamdance began in January 1995 when a group of first-time directors screened their films as an alternative to the Sundance Film Festival. Their objective today is to support new filmmakers on an ongoing basis.

Slamdance 2000 screened six films in its Special Screenings category, as well as a total of 30 features and shorts in the Slamdance Filmmakers' Lounge. "The Filmmaker's Lounge proved so popular in previous years, we have decided to turn it into a bona fide second screening venue at Slamdance 2000," said Slamdance Executive Director Peter Baxter. Several more films will be included in the festival and will be announced shortly.

"We are delighted to be able to give more filmmakers than ever a chance to participate in Slamdance," said Baxter. "Our focus is still primarily on the first-time directors in competition, but we recognize that there are a large number of films that fall beyond that criteria, that deserve to be seen in the context of Slamdance," Baxter added. "Slamdance has become an increasingly international festival - about a quarter of our films come from outside the U.S."

Another change this year, is that films that screen in the Slamdance Filmmakers' Lounge (sponsored by the Maryland Film Commission) will be eligible for the "Spirit of Slamdance Award" - a coveted bronze Sparky that will be uniquely voted on by all the participating Lounge filmmakers. "We're doing a lot more with our Lounge venue this year, and we wanted to figure out a way to recognize the filmmaker who most embodies the Slamdance spirit," said Slamdance Co-Founder-at-Large Dan Mirvish. "And if that means turning the Lounge into a bubbling cauldron of glad handing, backslapping and baby kissing filmmakers trying to win their colleagues' votes, then that sounds like fun to me."

Highlights among the Special Screenings were the U.S. premiere of Jason Priestley's feature directoral debut, Barenaked in America- a documentary about The Barenaked Ladies. The opening night film for Slamdance was Road to Park City, by first-time director Bret Stern. "We couldn't think a more appropriate kick-off to the festival than a dark comedy about filmmakers desperate to get into Sundance," said Slamdance Co-Founder-at-Large Dan Mirvish. On the documentary side, Todd Robinson - whose Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick screened at Sundance a couple of years ago - will debut his new feature Amargosa.

All films screened in the Lounge are to be projected on a state-of-the art digital projector, courtesy of Christie Digital (using the TI chip), and with a line-tripler from Faroudja. "Slamdance is no johnnie-come-lately to digital projection. We've always had some screenings on video in addition to traditional film projection," said Baxter. "This has allowed greater flexibility for the low-budget filmmaker who may not be able to afford video-to-film transfers, as well as accommodating those who edit their films on non-linear digital systems and can't afford an answer print or a Super16 blowup." Unlike Slamdance's Special Screenings and Competition films, Lounge screenings are available free of charge. "This will be one of the rare free things filmmgoers will find in Park City."

Screenplay Competition

The top three winners (1500 entrants) are:
First Place: Retro by Livia Linden and Percy Angress
Second Place: The Beekeeper's Tango by Michael Stark
Third Place: The Rape of Marta Alastor by Brent Studler.

Competition Features Lineup

7-Teen Sips
Blink of an Eye
Dolphins
Double Parked
Good Housekeeping
Goods Kurds, Bad Kurds
Rata, Ratones, Rateros (Rodents)
Road to Park City
The Strange Case of Señor Computer
The Target Shoots First
Tuvalu
We Married Margo

Winners will receive the coveted bronze Sparky statuette and the prizes listed below.
The Awards are as follows:
GRAND JURY AWARD FOR BEST FEATURE, Sponsored by DVD Express Prize - $5,000 DVD production service package from Bandwidth & Masterpiece.
GRAND JURY AWARD FOR BEST SHORT, Sponsored by Eveo, Inc. Prize - a digital video camera worth $3,000 courtesy of Eveo, Inc. AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST FEATURE, Sponsored by IndiePlanet.com. Prize - a special one!
AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT, Sponsored by Dr. Rawstock Prize - 5,000 feet of film stock from Dr. Rawstock.
KODAK VISION AWARD FOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY, Prize - $2,500 gift certificate for Kodak film.
AWARD FOR BEST BLACK & WHITE FILM, Sponsored by Ilford Photo Prize - $2,000 worth of Ilford black & white film.
AWARD FOR BEST EDITING, Sponsored by Trakker Technologies, Digital Origin, Inc. & Partners Prize - a full digital editing system courtesy of Trakker Technologies, Digital Origin, Inc. & Partners.
MOVIEMAKER BREAKTHROUGH AWARD, Prize - $15,000 worth of goods & services towards the filmmakers¹ next project, courtesy of Moviemaker Magazine.
BEST DOCUMENTARY, Sponsored by Christie Digital.
SPIRIT OF SLAMDANCE AWARD, Awarded to the Best of the Lounge Films, voted on by the Lounge filmmakers Prize: $1800 worth of Studio System Software courtesy of Creative Planet.
BEST SCREENPLAY, Awarded to the winner of the Slamdance '99 Screenplay Competition 1st Place Prize - $2,000, 2nd Place Prize - $1,000 , 3rd Place Prize - $500.
AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST ANARCHY ONLINE FILM, Awarded to the Best of the Anarchy Online films, voted on by the slamdance.com audience.