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Director: Rob Fruchtman and Rebecca Cammisa
Cast: Sister Helen Travis and Travis Center residents,
Mel, Ashish, Major, and Robert.
Country: U.S.
Year: 2001
Running Time: 90 min
Format: Beta SP
Long
before there was a film festival in Utah, Robert Redford looked
at the land he was accumulating in the dramatic Wasatch mountains
and had an idea. A great idea. His idea was to assemble established,
passionate filmmakers and then let new filmmakers use them
as a resource to develop their movie. Artists like Glenn Close,
Sydney Pollack, and legendary screenwriter Waldo Salt agreed
to help. For years no one noticed. All of a sudden the world
looked up and saw that films like Requiem for a Dream, Smoke
Signals, Bottle Rocket, Trip to Bountiful, Love and Basketball,
Reservoir Dogs, Boys Don't Cry, among many others, had been
incubated at Sundance. How did it happen?
Filmmaker Doug Pray went to the labs in the summer of 2001
to capture the process. Through interviews (Redford, Michelle
Satter who has runs the Labs from the beginning, and others),
and by focusing on a few of the projects, Pray has made a
film about this special movie camp. It is a fascinating and
rare glimpse into an important world. Because none of the
films from last year's Sundance Labs is in production yet,
this documentary gives the filmgoer a chance to guess which
filmmakers and projects will emerge.
The Producers Club of Maryland picks a project each year
and gives the Maryland Filmmakers Fellowship to the filmmaker
to move the project toward production. The 2001 Fellowship
was split between Tatia Rosenthal for her script $9.99, and
Jacob Kornbluth for The Best Thief in the World.
Sundance 20 was first seen at a private screening at Sundance
2002, and will be shown on the Sundance Channel.
--Jed Dietz
Presented By: Doug Pray with Tatia Rosenthal and Jacob Kornbluth
(participants in the 2001 Sundance Labs, and recipients of
the Maryland Filmmakers Fellowship)
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