2008 Sundance festival to highlight humor in 'insane world'
PARK CITY, Utah (AFP) — The 2008 Sundance Film Festival opened Thursday with a dark comedy about gangsters on vacation by award-winning playwright Martin McDonagh and a litany of funny films to follow, aiming for levity in an insane world.
"You'll see more levity in the festival this year," said actor Robert Redford at a press conference to kick off the 10-day independent film festival he started in 1981.
"It's a reflection of our time," he said. "I think you'll see more humor (in films in general this year), even if it's dark humor like Martin (McDonagh)'s work, because how long can you sit here and be frustrated and despairing that you can't do anything about it."
As well, the stories reflect more personal sensibilities, said organizers.
"The world is so insane right now, it's so dark and crazy ... the more personal the stories are (it) seems to be a way for filmmakers to get a grip on what they can do about things," Redford explained. "It's a form of survival."
After years of being bombarded with reports of the United States and its allies fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other bad news on a global scale, moviegoers are "ready for funny," commented festival programmer John Cooper.
Whether its quirky dysfunctional families in "Birds of America" and "The Wackness," or contract killers on vacation in the festival opener "In Bruges," this year's Sundance selection is aiming for a lighter tone, Cooper said.
"Oddly, Sundance is not known for comedies. But I think we're ready for lighter subjects this year," he told AFP.
In his first feature film foray in "In Bruges," after winning an Academy Award for his 2004 short "Six Shooter," McDonagh told reporters: "Having watched a lot of films about macho men with guns, I always wondered, 'When there's a hundred bullets being shot off in a street, where do all those extra bullets go?'"
"How does a decent person, however criminal, when a bullet hits someone it wasn't intended to, how do they deal with that morality, that guilt and then that despair," he said.
The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two London contract killers ordered by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to take a vacation in Belgium, after a badly botched job.
The film is "brutal, philosophical, funny and totally original," said Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance film festival.
"It's about killing people, but it's funny," added Cooper.
This year, 122 feature-length films were selected from a record 3,624 submissions, including 88 world premieres -- Redford's daughter Amy Redford's first flick "The Guitar" among them -- 14 North American premieres and 12 US premieres representing 25 countries.
As well, 55 first-time filmmakers will be showcased.
More A-list actors than ever before, including Michael Keaton, Colin Farrell, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Amy Adams, Ben Kingsley, Jack Black, William Macy, Julianne Moore and Robert De Niro are forgoing their usual big salaries to lend star power to independent films, increasing their chances of being picked up by distributors.
"I want to believe that we'll see more independent films at the box office this year, with all of this star power backing them," said Cooper.
Previously discovered films at Sundance include the 1989 global hit "Sex, Lies and Videotape," Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," and the dark Scottish tale "Trainspotting."
Sixteen films are competing for a prize in the documentary category this year, including "An American Soldier," which examines a top US military recruiter's tactics; "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" about steroid use in sports; "I.O.U.S.A." arguing convincingly that the United States is on the brink of a financial meltdown, and a peek into the public scandal and private tragedy of director Roman Polanski in "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."
Most of the documentaries, meanwhile, offer a more personal narrative, such as "American Son," about a soldier heading off to war, or "Traces of the Trade," in which first-time filmmaker Katrina Browne digs up the history of her forbearers, the De Wolfs, the largest slave-trading family in US history.
"They engage with audiences on a more human level," Cooper said. "In many cases, only they can make these films because it's their own story."
Competing in the dramatic category are "Frozen River," about the illegal world of immigrant smuggling, "Sunshine Cleaning," about crime scene clean-up, and "Good Dick," the tale of a lonely girl drawn from her isolated life by a doting video clerk.
And forty-five short films will be made available online for the second year in a row at iTunes, Xbox and Netflix.
