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Iraq takes a back seat at Sundance Film Festival
2008-01-17
The 27th Sundance Film Festival opens here Thursday, aiming to lighten the mood in war-weary America with a crop of comedies, wry dramatic fare and intimate documentaries. After years of being bombarded with reports of the United States and its allies fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, moviegoers are "ready for funny," said festival programmer John Cooper. Besides, the Toronto International Film Festival, renowned for its vast selection of films assailing US President George W. Bush's war on terror in recent years, "has already screened all the good anti-war flicks," he said. A series of weighty films depicting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan struggled to make an impact at the North American box office upon release last year, and Cooper believes cinema audiences are fatigued by the conflict. "Film-makers haven't said all there is to say about the war in Iraq, but I think audiences are saturated," Cooper said. Whether its quirky dysfunctional families in "Birds of America" and "The Wackness," or contract killers on vacation in "In Bruges", this year's Sundance selection is aiming for a lighter tone, Cooper added. "Oddly, Sundance is not known for comedies. But I think we're ready for lighter subjects this year," he told AFP. As well, more A-list actors than ever before, including Michael Keaton, Colin Farrell, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Amy Adams, Ben Kingsley, Jack Black, William Macy, Julianne Moore and Robert De Niro are forgoing their usual big salaries to lend star power to independent films, increasing their chances of being picked up by distributors. "I want to believe that we'll see more independent films at the box office this year, with all of this star power backing them," said Cooper. Previously discovered films at Sundance include the 1989 global hit "Sex, Lies and Videotape," Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," and the dark Scottish tale "Trainspotting." This year, 122 feature-length films were selected from a record 3,624 submissions for the 10-day independent film festival, which includes 88 world premieres, 14 North American premieres and 12 US premieres representing 25 countries. As well, 55 first-time filmmakers will be showcased, including award-winning playwright Martin McDonagh. His first feature film "In Bruges," starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two London hitmen ordered by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to take a vacation in Belgium, after a badly botched job, opens the festival Thursday. The dark comedy is "brutal, philosophical, funny and totally original," said Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance film festival. Sixteen films are competing for a prize in the documentary category, including "An American Soldier," which examines a top US military recruiter's tactics, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" about steroid use in sports, "I.O.U.S.A." arguing convincingly that the United States is on the brink of a financial meltdown, and a peak into the public scandal and private tragedy of director Roman Polanski in "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired." Many documentaries this year offer a more personal narrative, such as "American Son," about a soldier heading off to war, or "Traces of the Trade," in which first-time filmmaker Katrina Browne digs up the history of her forbears, the De Wolfs, the largest slave-trading family in US history. "They engage with audiences on a more human level," Cooper said. "In many cases, only they can make these films because it's their own story." And thanks to the success of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", many filmmakers have had an easier time getting funding for films about the environment, so expect more of these genres too, such as "Fields of Fuel." Again this year, music will feature prominently with "U23D", documentaries on Patty Smith and CSNY, as well a "real life version of Spinal Tap" with Canadian heavy metal band Anvil, still rocking in their 50s. Competing in the dramatic category are "Frozen River," about the illegal world of immigrant smuggling, "Sunshine Cleaning," about crime scene clean-up, and "Good Dick," the tale of a lonely girl drawn from her isolated life by a doting video clerk. And forty-five short films will be made available online for the second year in a row at iTunes, Xbox and Netflix.
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