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Sundance set to generate Hollywood feeding frenzy

Posted on: Thursday, 19 January 2006, 03:19 CST

By Anne Thompson

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Sundance Film Festival, which gets under way Thursday in Park City, Utah, is returning to smaller-scale indie fare, its programmers have promised.

But that approach isn't scaring away any of the Hollywood studios, which are descending on the resort in search of the next big commercial thing.

Festival director Geoff Gilmore wants more small films to find the right distributors for the right marketing niche. He cited films on this year's schedule such as the morality tale "Forgiven," "which came out of nowhere"; the Iraq War documentary "The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez"; or the microbudget "Steel City."

"Fox Searchlight doesn't define what is an independent film," he said. "I've always cared about expanding the market, not catering to it."

A feeding frenzy seems inevitable, however, as hungry buyers circle a slew of indie projects that no one has seen. They are all chasing the same holy grail: accessibly entertaining, low-budget, high-quality movies with known stars and indie cred.

The pictures with the greatest heat are inevitably those with stars. "Little Miss Sunshine" is by far the festival's most anticipated film -- largely because it stars funnyman Steve Carell, just off "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

"It might go for too much money," Warner Independent Pictures' Paul Federbush said. "It's hard not to get caught up in the frenzy."

The fact that its rookie filmmakers, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, are hot music video directors doesn't hurt either.

The first weekend is front-loaded with star-driven product, beginning with opening-night film "Friends With Money," a comic drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Frances McDormand.

Other titles set to generate buzz include "The Night Listener," starring Robin Williams; Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep," starring Gael Garcia Bernal; "The Illusionist," with Edward Norton; "Sherrybaby," headlining Maggie Gyllenhaal; "Stephanie Daley," featuring Tilda Swinton; and "Half Nelson," starring Ryan Gosling.

But the films that garner the most Sundance hype are not always the most successful. Conversely, some of the Sundance selections make their mark only after the festival is over.

Last year, for example, "March of the Penguins" barely registered on the Sundance radar until Warner Independent Pictures swiftly closed a deal with 50-50 partner National Geographic Films to acquire the French-language nature documentary and re-edited it into an English-language version; it then grossed more than $77 million. Several smaller acquisitions from Sundance 2005 -- from Samuel Goldwyn Films' "The Squid and the Whale" to Sony Pictures Classics' "Junebug" -- performed surprisingly well thanks to rave reviews.

Among this year's minnows is the comedy "The Darwin Awards," starring Winona Ryder, Joseph Fiennes and Metallica. Three-time Sundance player Finn Taylor spent seven years arranging independent financing.

"I hope people are buying into the unique script and characters," Taylor said. "We realized as the process unfolded that the studios would make a watered-down version of what we wanted to do. A watered-down version of 'The Darwin Awards' wouldn't be funny."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Source: REUTERS

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