“I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)
U.S. Inventor, Author, Politician, Lucky Man
“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
U.S. Author
As usual, I planned a great number work related activities but distracted myself with Sundance blogging instead. This is (yet another) bad habit I must work on. I spent the whole weekend finding IMDB links for this year’s films and looking for related sites. Some of the films have neat sites including: Dogville, One Point O [a site that reminded me a lot of the 28 Days Later (fake infectious) site, Open Water, Butterfly Effect, and Sky Blue. Check the 2004 Sundance Film Links link to the left. I'm sure that as the festival progresses and time goes on, the IMDB listings will be more complete.
Sundance By The Numbers, Part II
According to my count, there are 222 films in the 2004 festival. Of those, there are 87 short films (33 Shorts Program, 10 Frontier, 13 Native/Indigenous, 31 with other films). Of the 135 feature length documentary, drama, world, special, midnight and other screenings, 37 had websites and all but two (2) appeared in the Internet Movie Database. The two groups with the fewest links and related sites were Frontier and Native Forum. The two groups with the greatest number of links and [often sophisticated] related sites were, naturally, Premieres and World Cinema.
“Respect yourself and others will respect you.”
Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)
Chinese Philosopher
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X (1925 – 1965)
U.S. Black Nationalist Leader
Alec is very excited about seeing the Premiere of D.E.B.S at Sundance 2004. I think it’s because he was on a shuttle with director Angela Robinson last year. He begged her for the only Trading Card I was missing for a full set and she graciously gave him one. She fielded questions after the screening of her short film by the same title . She’s quick and quirky. You can read an interview with her on AfterEllen.Com.
Also note that I have a new link to the left on the films of 2004. I’m still collecting all of the links but the complete list is pretty much there!
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 – 1965)
U.S. Politician
“In a mad world only the mad are sane.”
Akira Kurosawa (1910 – )
Japanese Filmmaker
As I said yesterday, we will be attending several of the Shorts Programs at the festival this year. So the post for today will focus on previous Sundance shorts.
In one of the screenings at Sundance ’96, I ended up sitting next to animated filmmaker Gail Noonan. Her film, Your Name in Cellulite was screening and I enjoyed it immensely. As it turns out, her films are available at Cartoonan. The animation to the left is hers (and looks a lot like her). Check out some of her more recent efforts!
Another resource for short films from previous festivals is Amaze Films. I was pleased to see that they have numerous short films collections that you can purchase (a small business idea I once entertained myself). In addition to purchasing DVDs. I noticed that Ari Gold‘s short film Helicopter was on one of the collections.
“Life isn’t long enough for love and art.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)
English Novelist
“The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
John Locke (1632 – 1704)
English Empiricist
You may have been wondering where I’ve been for the past few days. (No doubt it took awhile to notice since you had your own holiday festivities in which to partake.) Well, I made a surprise visit to the homeland (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin). I rented Snowman and Santa costumes. My sister, Sandy, and brother-in-law, Jeff, helped Alec and I surprise the rest of the family by pretending to have hired people to pass out gifts. It was great fun!
I made my Sundance selections by telephone on the 30th. I was successful in getting nearly everything I wanted. We’ll be seeing five different Shorts Screenings. We also got tickets to Dogville starring Nicole Kidman with director Lars von Trier, November, distributed by IFC, and The Five Obstructions another von Trier experimental film.
My friend, Kohl, works at BYU and was excited about a BYU film being selected. The university sent me a promotional DVD of the short that spawned the selection. When I contacted the director about featuring the film on this site, I got an abrupt and not too courteous response so I was going to BOYCOTT Napoleon Dynamite but ultimately relented.
I’ve been working on setting up to blog remotely so I can post reviews and photos from Park City!
“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
Eric Hoffer (1902 – 1983)
U.S. Longshoreman and Philosopher
“Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.”
Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
English Critic
