Films directed by Oliver Stone, actors Salma Hayek, Matt Dillon and Campbell Scott, and Brigham Young University graduate Neil LaBute highlight some of the selections for January's 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
Stone's "Comandante," LaBute's "The Shape of Things" and Scott's "Off the Map" will have their world premieres at the festival, which runs from Jan. 16-26 in a variety of Park City and Salt Lake locations, as well as the the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon.
Hayek's "The Maldonado Miracle, which was shot in Eureka, will be part of Sundance's American Showcase slate, as will Dillon's "City of Ghosts."
Also premiering are Frank Pierson's "A Soldier's Girl"; "Confidence," James Foley; "Dot the I," Matthew Parkhill; Thom Fitzgerald's "The Event"; "Garage Days," Alex Proyas; "Good Fences," Ernest Dickerson; "In America," Jim Sheridan; "It's All About Love," Thomas Vinterberg; and "Masked and Anonymous," Larry Charles.
Other premiering films are Michael Polish's "Northfork"; "Owning Mahowny," Richard Kwietniowski; "People I Know," Daniel Algrant; and Alan Rudolph's "Secret Lives of Dentists."
Among the films competing for honors in the festival's Dramatic Competition section are Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's "Party Monster," which stars Macaulay Culkin; and Michael Burke's "The Mudge Boy," which re-teams Emile Hirsch and Vincent D'Onofrio, from this year's hit "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys."
Meanwhile, other Dramatic Competition selections include "All the Real Girls," directed by David Gordon Green; "American Splendor," Shari Springer & Robert Pulcini; "Camp," Todd Graff; "The Cooler," Wayne Kramer; "Die Mommie Die," Mark Rucker; Mark Decena's "Dopamine"; "Pieces of April," Peter Hedges; "Quattro Noza," Joey Curtis; Sarah Rogacki's "Rhythm of the Saints"; "The Station Agent," Tom McCarthy; "The Technical Writer," Scott Saunders; Catherine Hardwick's "Thirteen"; "The United States of Leland," Matthew Ryan Hoge; and "What Alice Found," A. Dean Bell.
"A Decade Under the Influence," the biographical nonfiction film begun by the late director Ted Demme (finished by Richard LaGravanese), heads up the films in Sundance's Documentary Competition.
Also included in that competition are "Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin," directed by Nancy Kates & Bennett Singer; John Dullaghan's "Bukowski: Born into This"; "Capturing the Friedmans," Andrew Jarecki; "A Certain Kind of Death," Blue Hadaegh & Grover Babcock; "The Education of Gore Vidal," Deborah Dickson; Stanley Nelson's "The Murder of Emmett Till"; "My Flesh and Blood," Jonathan Karsh; and "The Pill," Chana Gazit & David Steward.
Documentarian Anne Makepeace's "Robert Capa: In Love and War" rounds out the Documentary Competition slate, along with Robb Moss's "The Same River Twice"; "State of Denial," Elaine Epstein; Steve James' "Stevie"; "Tom Dowd & The Language of Music," Mike Moormann; "The Weather Underground," Sam Green & Bill Siegel; and "What I Want My Words to Do to You," Judith Katz, Madeleine Gavin & Gary Sunshine.
Director Mark Illsley, whose 1999 comedy "Happy, Texas" became a festival hit, returns with "Bookies," which stars Rachael Leigh Cook and Lukas Haas. That film will be shown as part of the festival's American Spectrum section, typified by smaller budgets and lesser-known casts.
Joining it in the American Spectrum section are Brandon Sonnier's "The Beat"; "Born Rich," Jamie Johnson; "The Boys of 2nd Street Park," Dan Klores & Ron Berger; "Civil Brand," Neema Barnette; Sam Neave's "Cry Funny Happy"; "Detective Fiction," Patrick Coyle; "A Foreign Affair," Helmut Schleppi; "Love and Diane," Jennifer Dworkin; Joe Maggio's "Milk and Honey"; and "White of Winter," Robert Saitzyk.
In addition to "The Maldonado Miracle" and "City of Ghosts," other American Showcase features include "Buffalo Soldiers," Gregor Jordan; "Laurel Canyon," Lisa Cholodenko; Jane Anderson's "Normal"; and "Raising Victor Vargas," Peter Sollett. (American Showcase selections higher-budget independent films with more "name" casts.)
The festival's opening-night premiere will be "Levity," a drama starring Billy Bob Thornton as a man released from prison, with Morgan Freeman as a preacher who tries to redeem him.
In addition to its independent film showcase, the 2003 Sundance Film Festival will include panel discussions and the closing-night awards ceremony, which this year will be hosted by actors Steve Zahn and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
A limited number of ticket packages for next year's festival are still available. Information on them, as well as a full list of featured Sundance films, can be found on the Sundance Institute Web site (click on the film festival icon at www.sundance.org.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com