Rather than opening with a single high-profile premiere, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival opened January 21 in Park City, Utah with films from three different genres. Howl, a feature-length biopic about American counter-culture poet Allen Ginsberg, Restrepo, a documentary on the war in Afghanistan, and a shorts program were selected to highlight the film festival’s scope and a return to its roots.
This is just one of the changes the fest has undergone this year under the guidance of John Cooper. The first new director for two decades, Cooper aims to steer the festival back to its roots of “less commercial, more independent” films. This new – or old – direction is being flaunted in the rather cumbersome slogan: ‘Reborn. Rebellion. Rebirth. Rebel. Renewed. Rebooted.’
As a result, some new categories have been added to the festival. NEXT is devoted to low- or no-budget movies, like brothers Todd and Brad Barnes’ screwball first feature Homewrecker, and Spotlight is a sort of ‘best of the fests’ program. One to look out for in the latter category is Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, which won high praise at Cannes.
Sundance’s Star Line-Up
Sundance has acquired a reputation for premiering independent crowd-pleasers, such as last year’s An Education and Precious, which have since gone on to box office and award success. At the same time, this has attracted criticism that the festival is neglecting the truly indie productions it was set up to support.
But like any film festival, Sundance needs to bring in at least a trickle of bucks in order to survive and so continues to tread a fine line between commercialism and independence. And one sure-fire way of attracting festivalgoers is to offer a good line-up of stars.
Festival founder and Hollywood heavyweight Robert Redford kicked off the event on Thursday with a press conference, while the very pleasing James Franco was on hand for the premiere of the movie Howl, in which he plays the lead role. Other well-known names, including Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, who appear together in Blue Valentine, Natalie Portman and Orlando Bloom, are also represented.
Sundance Festival Buzz
Dakota Fanning and hot property Kristen Stewart, of the Twilight trilogy, can also be seen in The Runaways, a coming-of-age flick about the 1970s Los Angeles girl band and their meteoric rise to fame. Two days in, The Runaways is already one of the film festival website’s most visited movies. This is followed by Welcome to the Rileys, which also stars Kristen Stewart, this time as an underage prostitute, alongside James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo.
Also screening is director Lixin Fan's Last Train Home, a documentary about Chinese migrant workers which won the top prize at last November's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
Sundance runs until January 31, 2010.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
Join the Conversation