The Warmprogress project

Festival Celebrates 25 Years of Independent Filmmaking and Cinematic Storytelling

Park City, UT - Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions for the 25th Sundance Film Festival. In addition to the four Competition categories, the Festival presents films in five out-of-competition sections to be announced tomorrow. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival runs January 15-25 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival.

“This year’s films are not narrowly defined. Instead we have a blurring of genres, a crossing of boundaries: geographic, generational, socio-economic and the like,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, Director, Sundance Film Festival.

“The result is both an exhilarating and emotive Festival in which traditional mythologies are suspended, discoveries are made, and creative storytelling is embraced.”

“Audiences may be surprised by how much emotion this year’s films evoke,” said John Cooper, Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival. “We are seeing the next evolution of the independent film movement where films focus on storytelling with a sense of connection and purpose.”

For the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected including 87 world premieres, 19 North American premieres, and 4 U.S. premieres representing 21 countries with 42 first-time filmmakers, including 28 in competition. These films were selected from 3,661 feature- length film submissions composed of 1,905 U.S. and 1,756 international feature-length films.

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION This year’s 16 films were selected from 879 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

The films screening in Documentary Competition are:

When You’re Strange (Director and Screenwriter: Tom DiCillo)?The first feature documentary about The Doors, When You’re Strange enters the dark and dangerous world of one of America?s most influential bands using only footage shot between 1966 and 1971. World Premiere

Art & Copy (Director: Doug Pray; Screenwriter: Timothy J. Sexton)?Rare interviews with the most influential advertising creative minds of our age illustrate the wide-reaching effect advertising and creativity have on modern culture. World Premiere

Boy Interrupted (Director: Dana Perry)?An intimate look at the life, mental illness and death of a young man told from the point of view of the filmmaker: his mother. World Premiere

The Cove (Director: Louie Psihoyos; Screenwriter: Mark Monroe)?Dolphins are dying, whales are disappearing, and the oceans are growing sick. The horrors of a secret cove nestled off a small, coastal village in Japan are revealed by a group of activists led by Ric O?Barry, the man behind Flipper. World Premiere

Crude (Director: Joe Berlinger)?The inside story of the ?Amazon Chernobyl? case in the rainforest of Ecuador, the largest oil-related environmental lawsuit in the world. World Premiere

Dirt! The Movie (Directors: Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow)?The story of the relationship between humans and dirt, Dirt! The Movie humorously details how humans are rapidly destroying the last natural resource on earth. World Premiere

El General (Director: Natalia Almada)?As great-granddaughter of Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles, one of Mexico?s most controversial revolutionary figures, filmmaker Natalia Almada paints an intimate portrait of Mexico. World Premiere

Good Hair (Director: Jeff Stilson)?Comedian Chris Rock turns documentary filmmaker when he sets out to examine the culture of African-American hair and hairstyles. World Premiere

Over the Hills and Far Away (Director: Michel Orion Scott)?Over the Hills and Far Away chronicles the journey of the Isaacson family as they travel through Mongolia in search of a mysterious shaman they believe can heal their autistic son. World Premiere

The Reckoning (Director: Pamela Yates; Screenwriters: Peter Kinoy, Pamela Yates)?A battle of monumental proportions unfolds as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo faces down warlords, genocidal dictators and world superpowers in bringing perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice. World Premiere

Reporter (Director: Eric Daniel Metzgar)?Set in Africa, this documentary chronicles, in verit? fashion, the haunting, physically grueling and shocking voyage of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof. World Premiere.

The September Issue (Director: R.J. Cutler)?With unprecedented access, director R.J. Cutler and his crew shot for nine months as they captured Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and her team preparing the 2007 Vogue September issue, widely accepted as the “fashion bible” for the year’s trends. World Premiere

Sergio (Director: Greg Barker)?Sergio examines the role of the United Nations and the international community through the life and experiences of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, including interviews with those who knew and worked with him over the course of his extraordinary career. World Premiere

Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech (Director: Liz Garbus)?An exploration of the history and current state of free speech in America narrated by the filmmaker’s father, First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus. World Premiere

We Live in Public (Director and Screenwriter: Ondi Timoner)?We Live in Public is the story of the Internet?s revolutionary impact on human interaction as told through the eyes of maverick web pioneer, Josh Harris and his transgressive art project that shocked New York. World Premiere

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (Directors: Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler)?With clients including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Chicago 10, the late civil rights attorney William Kunstler was one of the most famous lawyers of the 20th century. Filmmakers Emily and Sarah Kunstler explore their father?s life from movement hero to ?the most hated lawyer in America.? World Premiere