My friend Matt Went is here at Sundance, although not with our Eckerd College program. He is part of a program called Real Ideas Studios. This program puts a group of aspiring student filmmakers together for the ten days of the festival, and each group produces a final film in one week to be screened at Slamdance on the last day of the fest. There were eight groups, and after the screening I think its safe to say they all put a tremendous amount of effort into their films. Each film was a documentary about various topics in or around Park City, and all were intriguing. Having spent quite a few days in Park City now, I recognized many aspects in their films, or had experienced some of the things their documentaries were about. 

The Real Idea Studios program is open to any filmmaker, or aspiring filmmaker, to compete for best documentary. The program seeks to redefine “real world experience” as a global collaborative and cultural immersion within mentoring creative arts programs. They also have an emerging filmmaker program at Cannes Film Festival. Contact Info: info@realideasstudios.org

Click here to watch them! (more…)

Kanizsa Hill

Like short stories in literature, short films take on a life of their own in comparison to feature length films. When you’re limited to telling a story within the span of 5-15 minutes, every frame, every piece of dialogue, and every moment becomes painstakingly important and laced with meaning. After getting a chance to see the Short Film Program V at Sundance, and the Animation Shorts at Slamdance, I have to say how impressive it is to see talent cropping up all over the globe in these small projects. The two programs combined yielded a total of over 20 films so I’m going to break it up and just mention some of the personal highlights.

Short Program V

Surrounded by a festival often filled with dark subject matter and people taking themselves too seriously Captain Coulier shines through as a perfectly funny spoof on cult 50’s sci-fi classics such as Lost in Space. While this as a concept is funny in its own right, this film would be nothing without the brilliant writing, and well timed comedic performances by the entire cast. (more…)

We have arrived at Sundance! Just during the flight into Salt Lake City I managed to have found myself within a three seat radius of various filmmakers involved in two separate short film projects being screened at Sundance! The first was a group from Canada who showing the short film Captain Coulier during the short film selection V. It looks like a hysterical spoof (or parody?) on the 1950-60’s popular Sci-Fi from film and television series. Yet another group of filmmakers hailing from our norther neighbor are bringing us a political thriller which is premiering this Saturday. The film is called Ten For Grandpa and based on the short trailer looks very interesting to say the least. I’m going to work on contacting the filmmakers so watch for more information on these films when we get our hands on them!

OK, I do have to finish this review of Drugstore Cowboy though so I’m going to do the film, and Gus Van Sant (one of my favorite working directors) a huge disservice and give a very brief impression and review of this beautifully made film. (more…)