Eric Lavallée

And finally....I'd be truly disappointed if somehow this 50th prediction pick didn't materialize, as it as "Sundance" written all over it. I sort of jumped the gun with my predictions last year by naming Victoria Mahoney's Yelling to the Sky as a 2010 ready title. I was "off" by couple of seasons. The Sundance Lab supported filmmaker has spent 2010 deep in post-production and receive some extra support from the IFP Filmmaker Labs and was a Cinereach Sundance Institute Grantee. All that to say: 2011 will definitely be the breakout year for her directorial debut.

If Fox Searchlight execs still have enough energy left in the tank after a busy end of 2010, then they might begin the year with a bang, and put Tom McCarthy's second film into early circulation. Ideally, if Win Win is eventually pegged with an eventual spring release, then a showing at Sundance would help with early buzz. Sundance was the second stop for McCarthy's intro to filmmaking with The Visitor, and with Melanie Lynskey, Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and Jeffrey Tambor on board, this smells like a dramedy fit for the snowy Park City backdrop.

M. Blash’s debut film Lying went straight to Cannes, I wonder if this time out he'll hit a fest like Sundance before attempting to repeat with the French. M. Blash's The Wait comes in with virtuality no buzz, but then again, Meek's Cutoff wasn't even a blip on the radar before the Venice announcement.

Shotgun Stories was one of the best discoveries in American Independent film in 2007 and ironically, it had it's world premiere not at Sundance, but a couple of weeks later in Berlin. Jeff Nichols isn't likely going to be "overlooked" a second time out if he decides to submit his untitled psychological drama sophomore feature formerly going by the title of "Shelter".

AJ Schnack describes the backdrop of his latest documentary as “like no other place on Earth. Homer Simpson has described it as “Vegas if Ned Flanders ran it.” If ready on time, co-directors Schnack and David Wilson (True/False Film Festival co-founder) may allow us to explore the wonders of Branson, Missouri - the untitled documentary film is the anti-thesis of the Ozarks that Debra Granik introduced at last year's fest. If this is closer in style to Schnack's Kurt Cobain About A Son, then I imagine this could fall into the or U.S Documentary Competition category.