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Sundance Institute

2007 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILMS

ON iTUNES

Sundance Institute and Sundance Channel have announced they will offer narrative, documentary and animation shorts from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival for download via iTunes (www.itunes.com). The announcement solidifies Sundance's commitment to leveraging technology to help filmmakers expose their work and bring the Festival to film fans around the world.  A broad selection of short films from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival will be available for purchase and download priced at $1.99  each on the iTunes Store beginning Monday, January 22, 2007. 

"I have felt, from the earliest days, that if people really care about independent film, they should pay particular attention to short filmmakers, who are the best indicators of what is coming down the creative pike," said Robert Redford, president and founder of Sundance Institute and founder of Sundance Channel."

The films available on iTunes are drawn from the 71 Sundance Film Festival short films, representing 19 countries and 4445 submissions from American and international filmmakers. Also available on the iTunes Store will be free podcasts that take you behind the scenes of the Sundance Film Festival including engaging panels with filmmakers, journalists and industry representatives direct from Prospector Square and live performances straight from the Music Café in Park City. 

Sundance Institute will continue to stream a selection of short films online, free of charge, on the Sundance Film Festival website at www.sundance.org. These short films will be posted after they have screened at the Festival, beginning January 18 and continuing for three months to April 18.

Since 1991 Sundance Film Festival has provided a showcase for short filmmakers and their films.  Fueled by artistic expression and free from the conventions of feature-length films, shorts have the ability to transcend boundaries of traditional storytelling.  Over the years, the Sundance Film Festival Shorts Program has become a prime source of discovering filmmaking's newest voices, including Todd Haynes, Spike Jones, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, David O'Russell, Tamara Jenkins, Nicole Holofcener and Alexander Payne.

Documentary Grand Jury Prize: MANDA BALA

Dramatic Grand Jury Prize: PADRA NUESTRO

World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary: ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS

World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic: SWEET MUD

Documentary Directing Prize: WAR/DANCE

Dramatic Directing Prize: ROCKET SCIENCE

Excellence in Cinematography: Documentary: MANDA BALA

Excellence in Cinematography: Dramatic: JOSHUA

Documentary Editing Award: NANKING

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: GRACE IS GONE

Special Jury Prize: Documentary: NO END IN SIGHT

Special Dramatic Jury Prize for Acting: Jess Weixler, TEETH; and Tamara Podemski, FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND

Special Dramatic Jury Prize for Singularity of Vision: THE POOL

World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Documentary: HOT HOUSE

World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Dramatic: THE LEGACY

Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: DARK MATTER

Audience Award: Documentary: HEAR AND NOW

Audience Award: Dramatic: GRACE IS GONE

World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary: IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON

World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic: ONCE

Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking: EVERYTHING WILL BE OK

Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking: THE TUBE WITH A HAT

Honorable Mentions for Short Filmmaking: THE FIGHTING CHOLITAS, MOTODROM, t.o.m., DEATH TO THE TINMAN, SPITFIRE 944, MEN UNDERSTAND EACHOTHER BETTER

Special Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking: FREEHELD

It's an interesting thing, this Sundance Film Festival. How difficult to try and put into words the feeling one gets simply walking into such a high concentration of people who genuinely love film and the processing of film. I do mean that in a completely different way than the kid down at the Fotomat who really enjoys having an after school job. There's more to it than the spotting of celebrities at Main St. parties and local coffee houses (I myself one night did see Puffy Comb waving from a balcony. I didn't wave back, but I don't think he was too broken up about that), it's about the celebration of independent film. It can be about other things, if you want it to be. Sure the parties are fun, and the free stuff is plentiful (Who doesn't need a flashlight/ tie clip with disco setting from your friends at Hewlett-Packard?) but what about the spirit of camaraderie that develops among 80 people crammed into a bus built for 60, who all just got out of a movie that 40 people liked? There's an almost tangible electricity in the air fueled by furious debate over the quality, quantity and content of over 196 films which, when calculated with the differential equation:


ret(t) 1(t (t) + ?) _, (6.21) Yn(z) = - 2n(n - 1) ? u2(z) + ? - ln(2)*
2n-1pn! u1(z) j=0 _h1,j(j + ? - 1)(j + ?) + h1,j(j + ?) + h1,j-2 - h1,j?2_zj = 0




proves that it is impossible to be more than nine meters and seven minutes from a film discussion at any given point in time here in Park City (Look here math buffs, the Zero is silent, O.k.?) Such is the intense concentration of the average movie-goer here and their enthusiasm for sitting in dark rooms with crowds of strangers that you can't help but get wrapped up in the frenzy. I personally have been on no fewer than four living-room discussion panels about movies I haven't even seen. Not that my opinion wasn't accepted as valid, the patrons, staff, and volunteers of the festival seem to be of high intellect and tolerant understanding and their patronizing verbal head-pats let me know that they were all comfortable with being smarter than me. And then we all ate sushi.

This was my very first experience here at the Sundance Film Festival and I'm grateful for the opportunity, I had a grand ole time and I imagine in the future I should hope to reprise my moments of unadulterated celluloid elation here at your little film-o-rama. There simply wasn't going to be any way I was going to miss this festival this year. There were just too many people I knew coming up here so I got a job in the Volunteer Villa, the home away from home of the 1300 volunteers who help make the festival a success. Each time one of them walked in the door I recognized the light of joy that each one of them had just to be here and be a part of this event, and I was happy to give them a bag of Cheetos and send them on their merry way. It was nice to be helpful and supportive, but when you're in the trenches you get all caught up in the emotion of coffee-making. I guess only now, on the eve of the Festival's closing, can I look back objectively and say to myself that, yeah, this would definitely be one of my favorite 10-day film festivals in northeastern Utah founded by Robert Redford and taking place between the 18th and 28th of January here in 2007.


- Mitch Mishky, 2007 Sundance Film Festival Volunteer Villa "Co-Commander"

Today I was at work and dropped everything to run up to Park City for the Festival. My friend had two tickets to "My Kid Could Paint That," and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I'm not exactly a stranger to independent film, but I'd never been to the Festival before. I frantically borrowed a car at the last minute and was on the road.

Turns out we made it to the theater just a little too late and didn't get in to see the film. It was really disappointing, but we decided to make the best of it and go explore the Park City Main Street.

What an atmosphere. Our first stop was to catch the tail end of a panel discussion at the Filmmaker Lodge with four experienced documentary directors. The discussion was about selling rights to film subjects, which was fascinating. I leaned over to my friend and suggested we make a movie of our own. At one point, someone asked for hands of those in the audience who had a story they wanted to put up for a movie, and one of the directors was absolutely correct when he said, "All of them!"

Who doesn't have a story? After my experiences today, and having listened to these passionate people, I fell in love with the concept behind the Sundance "Focus on Film" campaign. Today, I walked among people who see stories everywhere, who see the human element in everything and know how to set it forth so viewers like you and me - experienced or first-timers - are still thinking about their work and ideas weeks later. That's talent. Because we all understand what it's like to have a story, and to learn from the stories that surround us, something draws us to understand the people in these films, and the driving force behind their lessons.

Amazing.


- Brooke Eddington, first-time Sundance Film Festival attendee (local college student from Broken Arrow, OK)