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Sundance 2011 Premieres Section: Arteta, Estes, Ratliff, McCarthy, Peretz, Mackenzie
Tons of high-profile film items for sale with star casts are, as I predicted, making the cut this year in the Premieres section. If I'm not mistaken, Fox Searchlight will use the fest to not only go shopping, but they'll be using Park City to launch Cedar Rapids and Win Win. With yesterday's Comp titles announcement, there appears to be a breakout commentary of an anti-church and anti-religion statement. We have Higher Ground, Martha Marcy May Marlene and we could add George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard and Kevin Smith's Red State to the same discourse.
Sundance 2011 Spotlight Section: Tsangari, Villeneuve, Reichardt, Silva, Ayoade and Swanberg
Some major Venice, TIFF, NYFF titles have been added to Sundance including high quality premium titles in Attenberg, Meek's Cutoff and Submarine. Gregg Araki will once again have had the chance to showcase his films at top fest on the circuit, his latest film Kaboom which was shown at Cannes and TIFF will find it's final fest presentation in Park City. Denis Villeneuve will deliver one extra push before the Oscars (Incendies is a top tier pick among all the nominees). Mumblecore member Joe Swanberg is also in the section but with a world premiere of his film.
Sundance 2011 Documentary Premieres: Pamela Yates, Morgan Spurlock, Steve James and Eugene Jarecki Among 8 Selected Works
And now we know why Sundance made the decision to do away with the docs they included in the Spotlight section, which was formerly the Spectrum section. Now Sundance is defined by three clear section. U.S doc and world doc comp categories and the heavyweight section for established documentarians which this year includes Pamela Yates, Morgan Spurlock, Steve James and Eugene Jarecki.
Sundance 2011 NEXT Section: Joshua Leonard and Andrew Dosunmu Among 8 with No or Low Budgets
Now in it's second year, Sundance's NEXT section which helps put the spotlight on low and no-budget films is stacked with familiar names and faces and of the eight we predicted Andrew Dosunmu's Restless City and Joshua Leonard's The Lie.
Sundance 2011 New Frontier Section: Clay Jeter, Lynn Hershman Leeson and Matthew Lessner Among Five Selected
Though I secretly wish that I could just dump in favor of the huge tentpole world preems that are the focus of our site, the New Frontier Section is unfortunately the section that I rarely venture into. Publicists would be kind enough to push me to reconsider this decision. As we previously reported, Lynn Hershman Leeson's TIFF debuted doc will be showing up at the fest, below we have Matthew Lessner's wacko The Woods (see trailer) promises several laughs and Sundance 2011 appears to be Rutger Hauer year - as he is coming to the fest with not one (Hobo with a Shotgun), but The Mill & the Cross as well.
