James Cameron may not be playing a film at Sundance, but that didn't stop his smash-hit Avatar from stealing the spotlight. At a private party hosted by Film Utah Magazine, Ubisoft and XBox revealed a sneak peek of the world's first game to be played in 3D.
The game allows you to travel through the make-believe world of Pandora as you fight off enemies in your Avatar. You have to wear 3D glasses, but the experience is very cool:
http://www.youtube.com/wat...
Maybe it is the altitude or its location high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, but Sundance Film Festival jurors seem to gravitate towards films that can be both chilly (and chilling) in tone and execution. Two years ago, it was FROZEN RIVER, a film about border smuggling in the frozen tundra of upstate New York that put one in the mood for an overcoat and a teeming cup of Ovaltine. Last year’s winner PRECIOUS, which just secured an impressive five Oscar nominations this morni...
In a somewhat strange convergence, European documentaries were the overall winners in all categories at the Sundance Film Festival, which announced its awards Saturday evening. While this is certainly a boon for European non-fiction makers, the European dramatic films in the World Cinema competition were uniformly snubbed. .
However, there was much love for European docs, which is certainly something to celebrate. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary section...
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Thirty-four films were awarded prizes in 29 categories, honoring both veteran and first-time filmmakers from the U.S. to Spain, Cambodia, and beyond.
First-year Festival Director John Cooper had branded the 2010 Festival a reboot, calling for a return to the Festival's rebellious roots, and the diversity of tonight's winners would seem to move toward satisfying that mission and complicate received notions of the homogenous "Sundance film." As he did throughout the week, Cooper broug...
The Sundance Film Festival is an event full of unusual stories....but Hasidic drug dealers? That has to be a first. The film, appropriately called HOLY ROLLERS, was produced and stars Danny A. Abeckaser, who is best known as a rock impressario and club promoter.
The film, set in New York in the 1990s, is about a pair of Hasidic Jews who become part of an ecstasy smuggling ring. The film is the feature directorial debut of Kevin Asch with a screenplay by actor/scenarist Antonio Masc...
As the Sundance Film Festival shifts into its final weekend, with awards being announced on Saturday evening, several distribution deals have been announced. While the horde of film executives left the Festival in the past 48 hours, a rash of deals have been announced, with more expected in the days and weeks ahead.
The heyday of when films were bought in the opening hours of the Festival are long gone, due to the difficult distribution landscape and the smaller number o...
Joan Rivers, the queen of comedy who has been perfecting her craft in a career that spans over five decades, is as unlikely a personality as one would expect to find in the uber-indie surroundings of Park City. However, the comedienne, who is as well known for her addiction to plastic surgery as she is for her classic comedy ("can we talk?" being her signature catchphrase) is here at the Sundance Film Festival for the world premiere of the documentary JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF...
After winning the top prize at the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world’s most prestigious showcase for non-fiction film, the Canadian/UK co-production LAST TRAIN HOME is making a splash at its International Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Now the clear favorite for awards recognition in the World Cinema Documentary competition here, the film seems poised for a distribution deal.
LAST TRAIN HOME by director Lixin Fan is a beautif...
Actor Mark Ruffalo, a genial leading man who has been one of the most consistent (and unheralded) actors in significant films over the past decade, has made his directorial debut here at the Sundance Film Festival. His sturdy direction offers a quirky spin to SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS, a comedy drama bout a diabled disk jockey who wakes up one day with the power to heal. The DJ, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheel chair, is winning played by Christopher Thornton, who also wro...
The recent tragic events in Haiti have given an unexpected resonance to a new documentary on child sponsoring that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past weekend. A SMALL ACT by Jennifer Arnold looks at the modern day phenomenon of Westerners sponsorship and adoption of third world children.
With the Haitian crisis generating hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from almost every nation of the world, often by exploiting images of ...
The Slamdance Film Festival, the scruffy cousin of the Sundance Film Festival, which is also happening in Park City this week, relishes its reputation as a truly independent festival that is less focused on glamour and more on the cutting edge expression of its filmmakers.
Further expanding its reach, the Festival has announced a worldwide video content collaboration with Microsoft to offer a four-film package as video-on-demand premieres. Zune Video Marketplace will make the sele...
With the Sundance Film Festival in almost its third decade, it is no surprise that there are certain filmmakers who have become Park City regulars and veterans of the American indie scene. One of the most successful of the women directors that Sundance has nurtured is Nicole Holofcener, who is back at the Festival with her latest film PLEASE GIVE. The writer/director was first at Sundance with her 1996 romantic drama WALKING AND TALKING.
Like that earlier film, PLEASE GIVE also...
When you have already won an Oscar, have your own theater stage company and are one of the go-to acting talents in the business, there is a need for new horizons to keep oneself fresh. Such is the case for actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an Oscar winner for his role in the biopic CAPOTE, who debuted as a feature film director this past weekend at the Sundance Film Festival with his film JACK GOES BOATING. Hoffman was born in Rochester, New York on July 23, 1967. After becoming involved in hig...
Well into its first frenzied weekend, one of the standout premieres at this year's Sundance Film Festival is the musical biopic THE RUNAWAYS, based on the girl punk rock group of the same name. The film is adapted from the band's lead-singer Cherie Currie's book 'Neon Angel' - a reflection of her experiences as a rock star.
The movie chronicles THE RUNAWAYS from 1975 - 1977 at the height of the punk rock revolution in the UK and the USA. Formed by teenage girl...
As further commitment to expanding audiences for independent films, Sundance Institute today announced a collaboration with YouTube to make available for rent three world-premiere films from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Beginning today, films will be spotlighted on the YouTube homepage, after which they will also be available until January 31 at YouTube Movies. Two audience favorites from the 2009 Festival will also be ...
Video on the Sundance Website
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Robert Redford, Sundance Founder
John Cooper, Sundance Festival Director
Brendan Hill, HESHER
Joseph Gordon Levitt, HESHER
Paris Hilton,...
More than 50 years after its initial publication, the tone poem HOWL is still a shocking bit of humanism, a cry for tolerance and a yell for individual self-expression. The poem's author, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, remained a controversial figure his entire life.
The impact of this envelope-pushing literary classic and the bohemian philosopher who was its inspiration make for an appropriate opening night for this year's Sundance Film Festival, the mecca of independent a...
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze premieres his latest work - I'm Here, a 30-minute short film - today at the Sundance Film Festival as part of the first-ever Opening Night's Shorts Program at the festival. The film is a collaboration with ABSOLUT VODKA, and the partnership acknowledges the brand's position as a pioneering and culture-shaping brand. ABSOLUT has always stood out in the marketplace as a groundbreaking company that has been supporting artists for decades. Previous collaborations incl...
Artist and scientist John Underkloffer brings us TAMPER, a spanking-new point-and-paint editing technology that transforms video with just a flick of the wrist.
When I visited the Oblong Industries laboratory in downtown Los Angeles recently to see TAMPER: Gestural Interface for Cinematic Design, I expected to see a newfangled movie editing system. I knew Oblong’s innovation wasn’t some new kind of mouse or keyboard, but that it involved working with gloves and giant screens to manipulate...
In our ever-evolving digital world, filmmakers push distribution farther by using the outlet that reaches the widest audience possible: the Internet.
In October, it wasn't uncommon that Sundance Film Festival Shorts Programmer Jon Korn added an extra hour of screening time to his routine 12-hour block. However, instead of picking up another title from the pile of literally thousands of unwatched films, he turned his focus to the online ether. Labeling it 'the only type of multitasking I c...
The 2010 lineup of short films is an adrenaline surge to one of today's hottest modes of storytelling.
If anyone has any doubt as to the 'health' of filmmaking, this year's abundance of short film submissions can certainly provide ample evidence to the contrary. With 6,092 short film submissions to the Sundance Film Festival this year, it's quite clear we're living in a video culture, and men, women, children, not to mention monkeys (see Fiddlestix by the Zellner Bros.), are all part of the v...
