In this section, FilmFestivals.com salutes the stars whose films are shaping the festival circuit.

January is a busy month for Julianne Moore, the star of the upcoming film Hannibal and the recipient of the Piper Heidseick Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sundance Film Festival. This morning, she has flown from New York to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, where she is the recipient of the Tenth Annual Lifetime Achievement Award.

The day's schedule brings a press conference, an awards ceremony (including a tribute to Ms. Moore featuring no less then than Lyle Lovett and Wallace Shawn), and an evening party sponsored by Piper-Heidseick champagne. Two days later, she will head to Los Angeles to present an award at the Golden Globes. In a few days she kicks off a worldwide press tour for Hannibal, the sequel to Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs.

The list of filmmakers to watch emerging from Sundance 2001 will surely be topped by the writer/directors of Series 7: The Contender, The Deep End, Scratch and Maelstrom, most of which are sophomore efforts from filmmakers who were initially lauded for their breakthrough feature debuts. Certainly, hot new filmmakers who no one has ever heard of before will grab the headlines first as their 'fresh' profile is exploited to sell tickets. However, the sophomore filmmakers profiled here have proven not only an ability to tell a second story (not an easy feat in this world of one note wonders) but to also expand and mature their talent.

Director Billy Wirth is walking to the Park City Library for the second Sundance screening of his feature debut, Macarthur Park. He's doing the interview while directing his management and PR team (who are following in a van), drinking his coffee, and being careful not to slip on the icy roads along the way. Nothing about him reveals the fact that he's had no sleep, that last night was one of the most talked about parties of the festival in honor of his film, that he was up at the crack of dawn to lead filmmaking courses for inner-city schoolchildren, or that he's on the way to his next Macarthur Park screening. His skin glows, his voice is calm and composed.

It's highly doubtful that there are any films that everyone has seen at Sundance. But there is one creative project that's ubiquitous here -- the festival's visual identity as emblazoned on the covers of film guides, street maps, press kits, T-shirts and post cards. The look changes annually, yet after the films unspool and the parties are long over, it's the festival's print material that serves as a visual record and resource.

Sundance's artful 2001 design identity, with a color palette of olive green and deep blue and a nod to early 20th century Dada and Surrealism, was created by a small San Francisco design firm known as Appetite Engineers (www.appetiteengineers.com). Founded by Cranbrook-trained designer Martin Venezky, the company has heretofore made it's name by creating the distinctive look of design award winning Speak magazine (www.speakmag.com), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's spiffy members' magazine, various photography books and exhibition catalogs, as well as more corporate clients like Reebok and Warner Bros. (Venezky also teaches graphic design at the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco.)

When Meng Ong got the call that his feature had been selected for the Sundance Film Festival, he thought it was a prank call. "I didn't believe it. I thought it was really my friend playing a joke on me."

The truth is often said in jest, and sure enough, Ong had been selected for the American Spectrum section of the Sundance Film Festival 201. Although Ong was hardly a stranger to the festival circuit -- he's had shorts and videos at the Clermont-Ferrand, MIX, and Singapore International Festivals -- it was a dream come true to have his first full-length feature accepted to Sundance.

Sandy Mandelberger interviews writer/director Henry Bean, lead actor Ryan Gosling and supporting actress Theresa Russell from one of Sundance's most talked about films, The Believer.

The Believer is the Sundance debut of writer/director Henry Bean. The controversial film is based on a true story of a young Jewish teenager who leaves behind his religious orthodox background and becomes a menacing neo-Nazi. The film has been widely praised at Sundance and looks like a strong contender for awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay (Henry Bean) and Best Actor, for 19 year old Ryan Gosling's amazing performance of the young man at war with himself.

French director Jean Pierre Sinapi's film National 7 (Uneasy Riders) makes its American debut at Sundance in the World Cinema section after winning prizes at Berlin, San Sebastian, and London Film festivals. In his latest film, he breaks the taboo of disabled sexuality with a ferocious humor and a small DV camera. National 7 takes a sensitive look at sexual desire and the challenges and excitement it offers to people in a home for the handicapped. In this film, Sinapi pays a tribute to a woman very dear to his heart -- his sister, a nurse at a home for the disabled. She, along with a long-time friend who died four years ago, inspired the main characters of a new gem on the festival circuit.