The China Mail - Sundance Film Festival hits Utah, one last time

Hollywood A-listers Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman and Ethan Hawke are expected to walk the red carpet at the snowcapped Rocky Mountain resort, along with a host of lesser-known filmmakers at one of the most important gatherings in the global movie calendar.

Amy Redford, daughter of the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" star who created the festival in 1978, said this year's get-together would be an emotional experience, just four months after her father's death.

"Very proud," she said, when asked how she felt about her father's legacy.

"He was somebody that created from the field, not from on high," she told AFP.

"He never meant to be the center of focus for this whole organization. The center of focus was always the storytellers."

- Line-up -

Among the dozens of feature-length films and documentaries on show over the coming days will be "The Invite" directed by and starring Wilde, opposite Seth Rogen and Edward Norton.

The script, co-written by Rashida Jones ("Parks and Recreation"), deals with a couple whose mysterious neighbors come over for dinner.

"Mad Men" stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery reunite in "Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass," where a Midwestern bride-to-be rampages through Hollywood in an effort to even the score after her fiance uses the couple's "free celebrity pass" on his famous crush.

In "The Gallerist" -- starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, along with Jenna Ortega and Sterling K. Brown -- a desperate curator tries to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.

Among the most hotly anticipated non-celebrity films premiering at the festival is "The History of Concrete," a sideways look by John Wilson about how to sell a film about building materials.

A strong international lineup includes director Molly Manners debut feature "Extra Geography" from the UK and queer genre film "Leviticus" from Australia.

"Hanging by a Wire" tells the story of the nail-biting race to save schoolboys dangling from a stranded cable car in the Himalayan foothills.

"Hold On to Me" from Cyprus traces the efforts of an 11-year-old tracking down her estranged father, while documentary "Kikuyu Land" from Kenya examines how powerful outside forces use local corruption to dispossess a people.

All of them will offer something special, Amy Redford said.

"I think the look on the faces of people that premiere their films and realize they're looking out into an audience who understand what they were trying to say...it always just is kind of a stunning experience," she said.

- Moving on -

The festival moves next year to Boulder, Colorado, having outgrown its current host city.

For festival programmer John Nein, who has been at every edition since 1996, leaving Park City will be bittersweet.

"It's a special place," he told AFP.

"It's a place that has been so tied to how the festival works in terms of people coming to this place. It's not particularly convenient. It's really cold."

"But in a weird way, that's what brings people here and it's what creates the audience that we have here. So I feel like that's part of what made it special."

Festival director Eugene Hernandez said the Sundance Institute will continue to have roots in Utah, even as the festival moves to Colorado.

But this year's program will be one to remember.

"There's going to be a lot of laughter, there will probably also be some tears, there will be joy, there will be connection, there will be community," he said.

"I think those are all aspects that make a festival."

G.Tsang--ThChM