Sundance Film
Festival

Wednesday, January 24

A tiny dusting
of snow fall teased the crowd in Park City today with just enough promise of
wintry drifts and good skiing to start everyone making plans for skipping screenings
tomorrow. Not surprisingly, the mood has shifted with the arrival of the hard-core
LA contingent, and most Park City denizens would love for the festival crowd
to simply get up on the slope and stay there.



At the theaters, audiences are still going strong as was evidenced by the sold
out show of Invisible Circus from Director Adam Brooks (writer -- French
Kiss, Practical Magic), starring Christopher Eccelston and Jordana
Brewster. Produced by Fine Line, Circus speaks a beautifully turned cinema-phrase
with its sparse story line and clean direction. Brewster plays a young girl,
haunted by the loss of her sister, travels to Europe to find the answers she
is sure must be hidden away concerning her sister's untimely death. But there
is no hidden agenda or secret link, and what unfolds instead is a deeply realized
coming of age tale.



Also screening tonight was the new film from Sundance veteran writer/director
Allison Anders, Things Behind the Sun. An evocative tale of a young rock
musician whose troubled past is a mirror of sorts to the hip music journalist
who tracks her down for an interview. The film stars Kim Dickens, Gabriel Mann,
Don Cheadle and Eric Stolz and was produced by the new company, Sidekick Films
which is a financial bridge company devoted to pursuing independent films.



While the festival is awash in production companies and financiers, companies
like Sidekick Films become worth their weight in gold as they work with filmmakers
who have some collateral (track record; talent; cash budget) to supply needed
cash or access talent.



Parties are still the industry pastime each night, and in a surprising twist,
most people outside are trying to crash a party that could be a clone of any
other on the street. The restaurants are serving the same pizza and chicken
skewers every night while the attendees are finding it hard to remember which
festival this is.



The exception to the rule tonight however was the extraordinary Atom Films party,
held at a ranch just outside town. Loaded with bales of straw and a mechanical
bull, and open to everyone (the only such egalitarian party at the fest), the
party was a huge success. Less 'themed' was the Fine Line party for Invisible
Circus and more traditional, the well attended party thrown by San Francisco
Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Frameline.

Kathleen
McInnis

Opening
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