Blogging Sundance: The Evolution of the Film Festival

Steven Soderbergh, SXSW's Janet Peirson and Joe Swanberg talk about premiering "Alexander the Last" on IFC and SXSW.

Most people who haven’t attended Sundance and even many who have think that the festival is all film screenings and parties. While there is plenty of that to go around, there are also always some major announcements that take place in Park City that have some impact on the film community at large.

The first big announcement took place at the IFC Breakfast & Press Conference held in the first half of the festival. After the members of the press and festival programmers finished their morning refreshments, everyone took a seat as the table at the front of the room was filled by Jonathan Sehring (president of IFC), Steven Soderbergh (more on him later), Janet Pierson (new head of the SXSW Film Festival) and Joe Swanberg (the king of Mumblecore).

The four of them were led through a discussion by Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez after the announcement that IFC Films would be partnering with the SXSW Film Festival to create a first-ever nationwide On Demand festival experience. Three titles will premiere simultaneously this March at the SXSW Film Festival and on IFC Festival Direct, their On Demand channel. One of these titles, Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last will have its world premiere at both venues, while the films Zift and Three Blind Mice will simply be U.S. premieres at the festival. The partnership will also include On Demand premieres of two 2008 SXSW titles, Medicine for Melancholy and Paper Covers Rock. In a press release handed out at the breakfast, another 28 titles were listed as IFC Festival Direct acquisitions.

The reaction to the announcement was mixed as some festival programmers wondered what this meant for both their festivals and for the theatrical lives of the films in question. The Sarasota Film Festival’s Tom Hall asked Joe Swanberg if he thought that by immediately putting his new film On Demand if it would keep all festivals after SXSW from programming it. Swanberg answered, “That’s really up to the festivals. I know I would still like to play festivals, but it’s really out of my hands.” Many of the festival programmers said after the breakfast that they would not play any film that had already been shown through On Demand. But from the filmmakers point of view, IFC Festival Direct gives them the opportunity to have their films seen in 50 million homes. How this all plays out remains to be seen.

Steven Soderbergh was on hand at Sundance for several reasons. First, he appeared on the panel because his two-part film Che would be having its IFC Festival Direct premiere on January 21st, which he was there to promote. Second, he was in Park City for the 25th anniversary of Sundance and to celebrate his breakout film Sex, Lies and Videotape, which put Sundance (and him) on the map in the first place. And third, he was there for “An Evening With Steven Soderbergh,” which turned out to really be a sneak preview screening of his work-in-progress film The Girlfriend Experiment. The film, which looks more like a finished product than a work-in-progress, is not one of his star-studded studio films. Instead it is an indie with a 1.5 million budget and no-name actors. In fact, no one in the film has any on-screen experience with the exception of the lead actress, whose only on-screen experience is appearing in over 150 adult films. The film is edited in a non-linear style and is beautifully lit and shot; the lead actress’s performance is captivatingly emotionless, but the film seemed to appeal mostly to real arthouse movie fans. The people who showed up hoping to see big stars in the movie left confused and complaining about the non-linear style.

The other big event I attended while at Sundance was the announcement of the nominees for the second annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking. The Cinema Eye Honors were created in 2008 when AJ Schnack (director of Kurth Cobain: About a Son), Thom Powers (Toronto Film Festival) and distributor Indiepix decided that they were less than pleased with the Oscar shortlist for documentary features last year and felt that the list did not accurately represent the best in documentary filmmaking. The event was held with much success in New York City and will be held there again on March 29th, at the New York Times Center in Times Square.

The nominees were announced by AJ Schnack, Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country) and Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, and 2009 Sundance documentary Crude) to a room filled with documentary filmmakers and festival programmers. There are 10 categories that awards are handed out in and the winners are chosen by a select group of industry folk, including festival programmers, film critics, bloggers, and filmmakers. The complete list of nominees are as follows:

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION FEATURE FILMMAKING

MAN ON WIRE directed by James Marsh
MY WINNIPEG directed by Guy Maddin
THE ORDER OF MYTHS directed by Margaret Brown
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED directed by Marina Zenovich
WALTZ WITH BASHIR directed by Ari Folman

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTION

WERNER HERZOG, Encounters At The End of the World
JAMES MARSH, Man On Wire
GUY MADDIN, My Winnipeg
MARGARET BROWN, The Order of Myths
ARI FOLMAN, Waltz With Bashir

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION

HENRY KAISER, Encounters at the End of the World
SIMON CHINN, Man On Wire
HILARY SANDISON & MARC SILVERA, Stranded
CARL DEAL & TIA LESSIN, Trouble The Water
ARI FOLMAN, SERGE LALOU, GERHARD MEIXNER, YAEL NAHLIELI, & ROMAN PAUL, Waltz With Bashir

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

ELLEN KURAS, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
PETER ZEITLINGER, Encounters At The End Of The World
JODY SHAPIRO, My Winnipeg
MICHAEL SIMMONDS, The Order of Myths
WANG SHI QING, Up The Yangtze

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING

IGOR MARTINOVICH, Man On Wire
JOHN GURDEBEKE, My Winnipeg
MICHAEL TAYLOR, MARGARET BROWN, GEOFFREY RICHMAN, The Order of Myths
JOE BINI, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
NILLI FELLER, Waltz With Bashir

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN GRAPHIC DESIGN AND ANIMATION

ADINA SALES & THE TEAM AT BLACKLIST, American Teen
BRIAN OAKES, I.O.U.S.A.
ANDY SMETANKA, My Winnipeg
LASSE JARVI, Surfwise
LEWIS KOFSKY & CURIOUS PICTURES, Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?
YONI GOODMAN, Waltz With Bashir

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC COMPOSITION

NICK CAVE & WARREN ELLIS, The English Surgeon
KELLI SCARR, In A Dream
ERIC LIEBMAN, Life. Support. Music.
DANNY ELFMAN, Standard Operating Procedure
BELA FLECK, Throw Down Your Heart
MAX RICHTER, Waltz With Bashir

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

THE ENGLISH SURGEON
MY WINNIPEG
STRANDED, I’VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAIN
UP THE YANGTZE
WALTZ WITH BASHIR

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DEBUT FEATURE

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, Sascha Gervasi
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON), Ellen Kuras & Thavisouk Phrasavath
BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER*, Christopher Bell
IN A DREAM, Jeremiah Zagar
UP THE YANGTZE, Yung Chang

AUDIENCE CHOICE PRIZE

AMERICAN TEEN
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON
MAN ON WIRE
TROUBLE THE WATER
UP THE YANGTZE
YOUNG@HEART

The films leading in nominations were Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir with seven nominations, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg with six nominations, and James Marsh's Man On Wire with five. In my opinion, the Cinema Eye Honors really do represent acknowledgment of the best in documentary film for the year.

Link to this page: http://www.independent-magazine.org/