IndependentFilm.com

Park City, UT— The 2007 Sundance Film Festival announced today the line-up of experimental and innovative films, media-based performances, and media installations that will be featured in the newly expanded New Frontier section and the New Frontier on Main venue. The Sundance Film Festival has screened experimental work since its inception more than twenty years ago and now New Frontier builds on the foundation of the Frontier section launched in 1996 to highlight films that push the boundaries of the traditional aesthetics and narrative structures of filmmaking. The 2007 Sundance Film Festival, the premier showcase for the best new work of American and international independent filmmakers, runs January 18-28 in Park City, Sundance, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah. For a complete list of films visit the Sundance Institute website at www.sundance.org.

New Frontier is a platform for artists who are working at the intersection of art, film and emerging media technologies, and who are using the moving image to explore new concepts of narrative structure. One component of New Frontier is the program of six feature films screened at Festival theatre venues as in past years. This year, the artists with films in this section range from Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno with ZIDANE to Anthony Hopkins with SLIPSTREAM and a rare collection of works from acclaimed international artist Pierre Huyghe. Offered this year for the first time, nine New Frontier artists and their work will be featured in a new venue called New Frontier on Main—the venue formerly known as the Film Center and is located directly across from the Egyptian Theatre in the Main St. Mall in Park City. New Frontier on Main will host screenings, moving image installations, live performances, a DJ lounge/café called the Rabbit Hole, as well as panel discussions and special events.

“It has been our goal to expand this program and provide a platform not only for filmmakers, but for artists who are pushing the limits of how audiences engage with the moving image,” remarked John Cooper, Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival.

“New Frontier on Main is a hybrid space that draws from the art gallery scene, microcinema culture, and the seductiveness of the DJ lounge atmosphere and has been designed to look and feel very distinctive from the rest of the Festival,” explained Shari Frilot, Senior Programmer, Sundance Film Festival. “We want to cultivate an artistic and social environment that disarms people when they enter the space. It's a way of unlocking inhibitions and encouraging audiences to think about opening themselves up to the new rules and cinematic suggestions which the New Frontier artists are inviting you to consider.”

Recent break outs from the Frontier category include Kelly Reichardt’s OLD JOY, Cam Archer’s WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN and Jonathan Caouette’s TARNATION. Other past selections include IRREVERSIBLE by Gaspar Noe and CREMASTER 3 by Matthew Barney, as well as work from such renowned experimental filmmakers as Jennifer Todd Reeves, Betzy Bromberg, Reynold Reynolds, and William Greaves.

The program for the New Frontier section is as follows:

FEATURE FILMS IN FESTIVAL THEATRE VENUES:

Artist Spotlight: Pierre HuYghe / France (Director: Pierre Huyghe)—A presentation of short films that have rarely been screened outside of a museum or art gallery context. Huyghe is one of France's most celebrated young artists. His multimedia installations—which are concerned with collective memory, the construction of narratives, and textures of re-enactment—have been exhibited at museums around the world including the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, and the Whitney Museums.

The Last dining table / South Korea (Director and Screenwriter: Gyeong-Tae Roh)—This minimal and surrealist film about irony and separation poetically explores modern social problems including pollution and environmental concerns and the collapse of family values.

OFFSCREEN / Denmark (Director: Christoffer Boe; Screenwriter: Christoffer Boe, Knud Romer Jørgensen)—Actor Nicolas Bro reigns supreme in the role of Nicolas Bro—a man intent on making a film about himself. After his director friend Christoffer Boe lends him a camera, his self-monitoring is so hair-raisingly private (and creepy!) that it becomes impossible to separate fact from fiction.
World Premiere.

Phantom Love / U.S.A. (Director: Nina Menkes)—A surreal drama about a woman trapped within an enmeshed family, and her slow process of personal liberation. Set in Los Angeles and Rishikesh, India, the film combines fairy-tale elements with brutal black and white photography to create a powerful testament about inner transformation. World Premiere.

Slipstream / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Anthony Hopkins)—A man discovers that life is random and fortune is sightless as he is thrown into a vortex where time, dreams and reality collide in an increasingly whirling Slipstream. World Premiere.

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait / France (Director: Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno)— During the course of an entire football match, seventeen super-35mm Scope format cameras were set around the playing field focusing solely on football legend Zinedine Zidane, who agreed to become the center of attention for this out-of-the-ordinary, full-length feature film. U.S. Premiere.

ARTIST PRESENTATIONS AND MEDIA INSTALLATIONS IN NEW FRONTIER ON MAIN:

1st Light / U.S.A. (Artist: Paul Chan)— Single channel digital animation projection. A light shines through an “open window” onto the ground, casting a haunting shadow ballet of plunging bodies and a rapturous migration upward toward the heavens.

ACADEMY / U.S.A. (Artist: R. Luke Dubois)— Using Dubois’ algorithmic compression technologies, each film awarded the Oscar for Best Picture is compressed so that it plays in a single minute. The entire body of award-winners is played back to back to create an astonishing survey of 75 years of motion picture history. Microcinema presentation.

CLUSTER / U.S.A. (Artist: Lincoln Schatz)—One wall in the room is watching you. Custom software creates remarkable generative video installation, which remembers, reflects, and remixes random moments into a beautiful action collage that becomes richer as time passes by.

COPENHAGEN CYCLES / U.S.A. (Artist: Eric Dyer)—A bicyclist travels through a fantastical, collaged reconstruction of Denmark's capital city. Dyer combines the pre-cinema zoetrope with high-definition digital video technology to explore the kinetics of Copenhagen. The film “Copenhagen Cycles” plays next to 10 of the zoetropes that created it.

KLIP//EFFECT / U.S.A. (Artist: Ricardo Rivera, Pier Nicola D’Amico)—The Klip Collective has developed a unique method of mapping video onto architectural elements with breathtaking effect. Coffee tables at New Frontier will radiate various images drawn from the collective’s extensive and eclectic library during the entire festival.

LUNCH FILM / U.S.A. (Curator: Mike Plante)—A short film program wherein each film was commissioned in trade for lunch of same value. Rules and ideas for each film are written on a napkin contract. Here are 14 of them, ranging from true art to easy comedy. Filmmakers include Cam Archer, James Benning, Sharon Lockhart, James Fotopoulos, Nina Menkes and the ZellnerBrothers. Microcinema presentation.

Meet me in witchita / U.S.A. (Artist: Martha Colburn)—A political fairy tale of Dorothy and Osama which plays as part of her installation room, where characters from the short film come out onto the walls. Scarecrows beware.

MOBIOPERA / U.S.A. (Artist: Shu Lea Cheang)—Mobile phone users at the Festival will jointly script and shoot a narrative soap-travaganza as they wait in line and move about Park City. If your phone can shoot (it probably does!) you are invited to co-script and shoot soapisodes for a collective narrative. Involves daily live casting and culminates in a MobiSlam VJ/DJ Party. Check-in at www.mobiopera.mobi.

Play / U.S.A. (Artist: R. Luke Dubois)—Using Dubois’ algorithmic compression technologies, the flickering faces of every Playboy Magazine centerfold since 1953 meld into a dynamic collective portrait of idealized feminine beauty as it has changed over the last half century.

Proving Ground / U.S.A. (Artist: Travis Wilkerson)—An intense and political live performance that will raise emotions. Skillfully combining video, text, live music, and commentary, Wilkerson will explore the notions of technological prowess outstripping our moral and ethical development. Man can fly, but mostly war has been advanced. Microcinema presentation.

YOU ARE HERE / U.S.A. (Artist: James Graham)—Sculptural two-channel video installation. “I discovered tv-chairs in the Greyhound terminal when I was seventeen and escaping a cult. When I found myself living on the same block decades later, I decided they were the best way to discuss the economic disparity in L.A.”

Festival attendees will also be able to join New Frontier artists as they discuss their installations, show past work and share visions for the future. Artist Coffee takes place each morning in the Microcinema from 10-11 am. And the coffee is free!

Festival Sponsors
The 2007 Sundance Film Festival sponsors help sustain Sundance Institute's year-round programs to support independent artists, inspire risk-taking and encourage diversity in the arts. This year's Festival Sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors — Entertainment Weekly, Volkswagen of America, Inc., HP, Adobe, and AOL; Leadership Sponsors—American Express, Delta Air Lines, and DIRECTV.; Sustaining Sponsors—ABSOLUT®, Aquafina, Blockbuster Inc., CESAR® Canine Cuisine, KRUPS, L’Oreal Paris, The New York Times, Ray-Ban, Sony Electronics, Inc., Stella Artois®, Turning Leaf Vineyards, and the Utah Film Commission.

Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is the premier showcase for U.S. and international independent film. Held each January in Park City, Sundance Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah, the Festival is a core program of Sundance Institute, a nonprofit cultural organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981.

Presenting 123 dramatic and documentary feature-length films in seven distinct categories and 80 short films each year, the Sundance Film Festival has introduced American audiences to some of the most innovative films of the past two decades. The official website of the Sundance Film Festival, www.sundance.org, shares the Festival experience beyond the streets of Park City with a global audience through the streaming of short films, filmmaker interviews, and current news and box office information.

Sundance Institute:
Dedicated year-round to the development of artists of independent vision and to the exhibition of their new work, Sundance Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006. Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, the Institute has grown into an internationally recognized resource for thousands of independent artists through its Film Festival and artistic development programs for filmmakers, screenwriters, composers, playwrights and theatre artists. The original values of independence, creative risk-taking, and discovery continue to define and guide the work of Sundance Institute, both with US artists and, increasingly, with artists from other regions of the world