Park City, 1/26.

"If there can be some crossover between new film and new art that's symbiotic, that's going to be an important part of the future for Sundance - and for film," Robert Redford tells Steven Henry Madoff, who tours the exhibitions for Artforum.

"[I]n a year when the absence of Iraq films has been one of the big stories at Sundance, Russia has emerged as the program's most prominent foreign country. No fewer than four titles this year - tellingly, only one of them actually produced in Russia - approach the country's growing pains from different angles, offering a thorough portrait of a nation in which corruption, violence, cynicism, and despair mingle with a weak twinkle of hope and the shreds of a once-lively folk culture." Darrell Hartman in the New York Sun on Transsiberian, Alone in Four Walls, Durakovo: Village of Fools and Mermaid.

In the Los Angeles Times, David A Keeps profiles "the queen of Sundance," Melonie Diaz, "who this year is actually in four festival entries - American Son, Assassination of a High School President, Be Kind Rewind and Hamlet 2 - is the latest to be handed the crown. She joins such esteemed predecessors as Parker Posey, Lili Taylor, Christina Ricci, Kirsten Dunst, Chloë Sevigny, Catherine Keener and Patricia Clarkson. 'It's an honor,' Diaz says, 'but it's intimidating, and a little embarrassing. In industry terms, I'm still a newbie.'" She's 23.

"This year, it's the ever-proliferating bloggers - Spout, Cinematical, Movie City News and Hollywood Elsewhere - that have become the instant barometers for how a film plays," writes Variety's Michael Jones.

"The upheaval in the music world has tipped the balance of power away from the big corporations and towards the artist: the small-scale is thriving. Will low-budget, DIY production also be the future for movies? It's an exciting, unpredictable time." Tom Horan files a longish report for the Telegraph.

Posted by dwhudson at January 26, 2008 3:53 PM