Eric Lavallée

Sony Pictures Classics made one of the better moves of the festival with their pre-emptive pick-up of Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter. The film played extremely well at yesterday's Eccles premiere, I was gauging how a film that is marriage drama, disaster film elements and psychological thriller with a deliberate slow pacing might appeal to the general public - I'm optimistic that this multi-genre film with a hint of Todd Haynes' Safe will find more than one audience -- Michael Shannon fans will of course find the Shannon of Shotgun Stories -- hardcore, stellar acting and Jessica Chastain's character isn't some throwaway wife role, but in many respects, is the rock/foundation of the film.

The site will be playing catch up for the next couple of weeks with loads of Sundance reviews, interviews and screening coverage, Here we rewind back to Day 2's world premiere post-screening Q&A for Andrew Okpeaha MacLean's On the Ice. Competing in the U.S Dramatic Competition, the Alaskan-born filmmaker work-shopped the film in the Sundance labs and his previous short on which this is based on, was also at the festival a couple of years back.

I've got the post screening Q&A below, but I wish I would have recorded Elgin James when he was presenting the film, as it would explain how "far" this first-time filmmaker has come. An expansion from his short film, Juno Temple (who championed this project for more than two years) and Kay Panabaker essentially play the yin and yang and pull from James' own background -- which serves as a template for some of the narrative details/character motivations.

Odds that a Sundance short films program will be a good harvest are in the high percentile -- with over 6000 short film submissions sent in and about less than 100 selected certainly increases those odds. In any given year at the festival, you could easily trace back a filmmaker's presenting his/her feature film to the roots of shorts included in the fest from previous years.

Before the unveiling of the world premiere for Braden King's HERE - patrons at the Library Center had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the HERE experience. You see, the film has mutated into several forms -- next week Sundance hosts Here [ The Story Sleeps ] a live, three-screen, transmedia presentation.