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PARK CITY, UTAH — Credits for the high-energy Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! could list 51 filmmakers. Nathanial Hörnblowér — alias for Beastie Adam "MCA" Yauch — would be the name at the top of the list. Yauch has been in charge of the landmark band's video art and photography for 15 years, always operating under his pseudonym.
On Oct. 9, 2004, at the sold-out Madison Square Garden Beastie Boys show, Yauch supervised the distribution of 50 handheld digital video cameras to concertgoers who came expecting to do nothing more than enjoy the show of a lifetime. Instead they became instant filmmakers responsible for providing footage from all corners of the massive arena.
Veteran cinematographers might consider Awesome's off-the-street filmmakers as nothing more than amateur photographers told to shoot whatever they want until their video cartridges run out. That's not how real movies are made, after all. But Awesome dazzles with a kaleidoscope of rocketing images that matches the chest-pounding beat of the Beastie's music.
A large audience packed an afternoon screening Jan. 21 at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the first time a public crowd watched the film, and the response was wildly enthusiastic.
It's a concert documentary like no other, and it took a new model of moviemaking and affordable new film equipment to make it possible.
And so a movie can be made anywhere thanks to small and relatively inexpensive digital cameras. A multi-hour cartridge costs only a few dollars. Computer software allows grassroots filmmakers to edit their movies, mix sound and create credits on their desktops. This is what technology is supposed to do — create a pure cinematic democracy.
"This is a great time to be a filmmaker," says Academy Award-winning director Freida Lee Mock. "The cost of film stock and processing the film used to be a challenge for non-fiction filmmakers like myself. Great stories never got told because filmmakers could not raise sufficient funds. Digital video has made moviemaking affordable. It's made more things possible.
"But it's kind of like when the Brownie Camera came out so long ago. Anyone holding a video camera can shoot footage, but that doesn't necessarily make them a filmmaker."
Mini Sundances everywhere
Mock is a thin woman with dark bangs that cover her forehead. She speaks quietly, but every word packs an authoritative wallop.
Festival chaos surrounds her as celebrities like Ashley Judd give interviews in nearby rooms of the large complex at the base of Main Street here, all of them sponsored by various companies like Philips and Yahoo! Mock has found a quiet corner of an Asian restaurant that's been converted into the Heineken Lounge for the run of the festival.
Told that she's considered an icon by her fellow documentary filmmakers, Mock lets out a gentle laugh. But she's reached a point in her career where she can consistently make movies and be confident that the financing will be there for her.
People who aspire to be as acclaimed as Mock are making their own low-budget films in all parts of the country — actually all around the world — and often using similar equipment. The catch is getting their movies seen.
Mock has come to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival to promote her latest film, Wresting with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, a fascinating and engaging look at the playwright best known for Angels in America and his tireless activism for social justice.
She's been to Sundance before, most recently in 1999 for her Vietnam documentary Return With Honor. Mock comes for one simple reason — to guarantee that her film will be seen by film company executives who might decide to distribute her film so others can watch it.
Sundance, celebrating the 25th year of its filmmakers institute, is the key festival for filmmakers who want to sell their films and themselves. If a filmmaker — whether a veteran like Mock, an up-and-comer like Hilary Brougher or an audacious avant-garde artist like Larry Clark — wants his or her movie to be seen and sold, he or she understands that Sundance is important.
There's constant gridlock on the streets and sidewalks of Park City, the festival's mountain ski-resort town home. There's also a deeper, emotional gridlock.
It's easy to buy a video camera, but getting into Sundance and being treated like a professional is harder than ever. There are only so many festival slots for movies. The digital revolution has yet to make it easy for filmmakers to get their works to audiences in a professional manner, though that could change soon.
On Friday, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, a thriller set in the southeastern Ohio river town of Belpre, opens in select art-house theaters nationwide. But the point of the digital revolution is for everyone from anywhere, especially small towns like Belpre, to be able to watch Bubble if they want. (See the feature story on page 53.)
Three days after it opens in theaters, you'll be able to buy Bubble on DVD online and in stores for $29.95. You can pay for a one-time viewing via high-definition cable TV the same weekend it opens in theaters. No one who's heard about the film and wants to see it will miss out, no matter where they live.
Mock agrees that changes are underway in the film industry. It's become easier to make movies, and it'll soon be easier to show movies. The question is how.
A short film or a scene from a feature-length film now can play back on a mobile phone or handheld video player thanks to a just-announced deal by THINK Mobile out of Burbank, Calif. A few days ago Finn Taylor, director of the Sundance feature The Darwin Awards, sent out a scene from his film to various cell phones.
Laptop computers and handheld devices are becoming the new portable televisions. A state-of-the-art cinema still might be the ultimate goal for serious filmmakers, but a complete cinematic democracy allows digital-era filmmakers the affordable opportunity to show their movies to audiences by any means possible.
If Bubble is the dawn of a new day, then towns like Belpre, Ohio and Parkersburg, W.Va., where Soderbergh shot the digital film, will become film festivals, mini versions of Sundance, every night of the week.
Local Lions
"We're one of the first films to use the digital revolution, and it feels like we're the last one to get finished," Steven Bognar says, taking a much-needed break a few weeks ago over a spinach omelet at a diner in Cincinnati's Bond Hill neighborhood.
For their epic documentary A Lion in the House, Bognar and partner Julia Reichert edit and work out of their home in the small college town of Yellow Springs, some 90 minutes northeast of Cincinnati. Driving to and from the Cincinnati airport when they need to travel might be an inconvenience, but they've come to love Yellow Springs.
Bognar and Reichert can work anywhere, but they choose to make their home and their films in Ohio. Granted, they still travel to finish the audio and to color correct A Lion in the House at professional processing labs in New York City or Los Angeles. When it comes to moviemaking, there are still some things you can't do professionally on your desktop.
But those tasks are diminishing, and it won't be long before a home office in Yellow Springs can match the quality of a Los Angeles film lab. Imagine the ability to make a movie at home that looks as good as something done by a studio — that's when the digital revolution will be complete.
A Lion in the House is the type of sprawling documentary that finds a home at festivals like Sundance, where it's being shown on the festival's opening day. Over 230 minutes in length, Bognar and Reichert's story centers on five children and their families during their time on the cancer ward at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Few details are spared in what is an epic journey of emotion and human endurance.
The families are a diverse sample of America — black and white, affluent and poor — and yet a single ethical theme connects all the families as well as the audience. When is enough treatment enough? When do parents have to let their child die? With the memory of Terry Schiavo still fresh on the American psyche, A Lion in the House offers fresh stories and insights on a difficult issue.
Their race to get packed and prepared for Sundance still isn't over when we meet up in the days leading up to the festival. Reichert and Bognar have just returned from a weekend in Los Angeles at the TV Critics Convention, a good primer for their week here. The event was a publicity whirlwind where they found themselves wedged between retired newsman Walter Cronkite and British comedian Eric Idle. Sundance promises to be more of the same — but magnified.
Actress Doris Roberts, best known for her role as Ray Romano's meddling mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, introduced A Lion in the House at the critics convention in order to give the solemn topic a celebrity boost.
"We showed just a brief sample of the film, a trailer really," Reichert says. "But the critics could watch the film in their hotel rooms and I think a number of them did."
Thirty minutes of the film plays on a laptop while Bognar and Reichert check and return messages and prepare for the drive back up to Yellow Springs. The first section of A Lion in the House is pure primer, an introduction to four of the children who appear in the movie. But during that time a bond is formed, and it becomes difficult to turn off the DVD and hand it back to its filmmakers.
The remaining sections will have to wait until its debut screening in front of Sundance audiences.
"The (TV) critics asked a lot about boundaries," Reichert says. "They wanted to know what we filmed and what we wouldn't film. It's a question we constantly asked ourselves during those daily drives back and from Children's Hospital."
The uncertainty about appropriate behavior between filmmaker and subject remains despite the fact that the film has been finished for some weeks.
"I know that I wanted to be a good person as much as a good filmmaker," Bognar says, before getting up from the diner booth. "If a family member needs someone to hold them during tears, then I'm going to put the camera down and hold them. I'm going to do what's right, and I believe I can still get the footage."
Welcome to Gridlock
Bognar and Reichert didn't need Sundance to produce or finish A Lion in the House. They were able to piece together the necessary financing and make the movie they wanted to make. And they don't need Sundance to show it — the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) plans a nationwide telecast in June.
But if Bognar and Reichert want to experience A Lion in the House as a big-screen movie, Sundance is the final piece of the filmmaking puzzle. They could rent a theater in their hometown of Yellow Springs and fill it with friends, family and movie junkies, but if they want the film to be seen by the most amount of people — if they want to pay off all debts or perhaps make some money, and if they want to the film to be taken seriously and improve their chance at making that next movie — they need Sundance. It's one of only a small handful of film festivals where movies like this are celebrated and seen by professionals in the film industry. Moviemakers might be scattered across all corners of America and the world, but Sundance is that one ship they need to board, and there's only so much room.
A Lion in the House is one of only 16 American documentary films competing for a Jury Prize here, proof of how far Bognar and Reichert have already come with the film.
"The families, our crew and some of the Children's Hospital staff you'll meet in the film are here, and we'll invite them down for questions and answers after the screening," Bognar tells the crowd just before the lights dim in the Prospector Square Theatre, a large auditorium attached to a longstanding hotel and resort near the festival headquarters.
Tips provided by Bognar and Reichert to their Lion stars include carrying food in one's pockets, dressing in layers and drinking plenty of water. What hasn't been emphasized is the dizzy feeling of walking into an auditorium and being the focus of hundreds of strangers.
The first afternoon is one of the busiest times at Sundance, but there's a sizable crowd for the film, almost capacity, an amazing achievement for such subject matter.
Still, whether the majority of festival press will dedicate four hours to a single film remains anyone's guess. Chances for a Jury Prize are the farthest thing from Bognar and Reichert's minds.
They're feeling good about the film during the debut screening, and most of the audience stays until the very end. The response is emotional and enthusiastic.
The families and the crew join the two directors onstage, but there's little time for questions. The next film has to start. So Bognar, Reichert and their Lion families retreat to the theater snack bar to celebrate and talk to whomever has time.
The festival is just underway, and more screenings are planned. But the premiere has proven to these families and filmmakers that their journeys together paid off with a climax worthy of their time, energy and hearts.
All That Glitters
The largest Sundance crowds — a mix of press, publicists and public — gather a mile away from the closest screening venue. This might sound like a strange thing to say at a film festival, but movies matter less at the massive two-story white tent known as The Village at the Lift.
Located adjacent to the Main Street ski lift, The Village is a sprawling complex of company-sponsored gift houses where filmmakers and actors can choose clothes, electronics and other newly introduced goods. It's also a popular place for celebrity interviews.
True independents like Bognar and Reichert never come close to The Village at the Lift — they couldn't get in if they tried. But celebrity junkies line up along the outside sidewalk and a nearby pedestrian bridge desperate for a photo of Jennifer Aniston, in town to promote her film Friends With Money, or Paris Hilton, in town just to be seen.
The crowds rush Aniston on her way to the tent, forcing her publicist to swing at the crowd and pull the famous actress inside. The fans outnumber tent security staff 100-to-1, and it's surprising no one has gotten hurt.
Aniston knows firsthand about being the celebrity deer in the headlights thanks to constant paparazzi and tabloid reporters interested in her every move. It's the clichéd price of stardom, one she accepts.
"I can still go out and do things," Aniston says, sitting with her Friends With Money co-star and close friend Catherine Keener. "I can go to a book store. I can go out."
Quiet time in the tent provides some fun for Aniston and Keener, and they laugh frequently while recounting pranks they play on each other.
"It feels great to be in a film like Friends With Money," Aniston says. "I would be honored if Nicole (Holofcener, the film's director) would have me in her next film."
Coming to Sundance with Friends With Money offers Aniston a chance to give an easygoing performance in a likable female tale. It's a credibility boost she understands and appreciates.
The appearance of celebrities guarantees Sundance a media spotlight like no other. The attention is a good thing, if it can trickle down to other films.
Over at another large tent — this one outside the Holiday Village Theaters — Park City's lone multiplex and home to many festival screenings — Bognar waits in the lobby for the second public screening of A Lion in the House to start. The spotlight glow of the previous day's premiere is over, even though Bognar, Reichert and everyone involved with the film celebrated after the show at a Main Street restaurant.
Bognar is feeling good but tired. He's going to introduce the film himself, and Reichert will join him for the post-screening question and answer session.
Audiences are responding to A Lion in the House, but there's no denying the emotional heartache of the stories they're sharing. And that's another hope for the digital revolution and total film democracy — a movie doesn't have to be a crowd pleaser to get a shot in front of a crowd.
Look for Steve Ramos' SUNDANCE DIARIES throughout the remainder of the festival at
 As you can imagine, skiing is a popular extracurricular activity at the Sundance Film Festival.
Dustin James Ashley plays a factory worker in the small town of Belpre, Ohio,in Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, which is being simultaneously released in theaters, on DVD and on cable television. Yellow Springs-based filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert (above) brought their documentary A Lion in the House, featuring cancer patients and families as well as staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival to seek wider audiences and wider distribution. The cast and crew of A Lion in the House got their day in the Sundance spotlight at a screening (below) on the festival's opening day.Jennifer Aniston's Friends With Money continues Sundance's tradition of mixing celebrity-heavy films with more esoteric fare.
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PARK CITY, UTAH — Credits for the high-energy Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! could list 51 filmmakers. Nathanial Hörnblowér — alias for Beastie Adam "MCA" Yauch — would be the name at the top of the list. Yauch has been in charge of the landmark band's video art and photography for 15 years, always operating under his pseudonym.
On Oct. 9, 2004, at the sold-out Madison Square Garden Beastie Boys show, Yauch supervised the distribution of 50 handheld digital video cameras to concertgoers who came expecting to do nothing more than enjoy the show of a lifetime. Instead they became instant filmmakers responsible for providing footage from all corners of the massive arena.
Veteran cinematographers might consider Awesome's off-the-street filmmakers as nothing more than amateur photographers told to shoot whatever they want until their video cartridges run out. That's not how real movies are made, after all. But Awesome dazzles with a kaleidoscope of rocketing images that matches the chest-pounding beat of the Beastie's music.
A large audience packed an afternoon screening Jan. 21 at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the first time a public crowd watched the film, and the response was wildly enthusiastic.
It's a concert documentary like no other, and it took a new model of moviemaking and affordable new film equipment to make it possible.
And so a movie can be made anywhere thanks to small and relatively inexpensive digital cameras. A multi-hour cartridge costs only a few dollars. Computer software allows grassroots filmmakers to edit their movies, mix sound and create credits on their desktops. This is what technology is supposed to do — create a pure cinematic democracy.
"This is a great time to be a filmmaker," says Academy Award-winning director Freida Lee Mock. "The cost of film stock and processing the film used to be a challenge for non-fiction filmmakers like myself. Great stories never got told because filmmakers could not raise sufficient funds. Digital video has made moviemaking affordable. It's made more things possible.
"But it's kind of like when the Brownie Camera came out so long ago. Anyone holding a video camera can shoot footage, but that doesn't necessarily make them a filmmaker."
Mini Sundances everywhere
Mock is a thin woman with dark bangs that cover her forehead. She speaks quietly, but every word packs an authoritative wallop.
Festival chaos surrounds her as celebrities like Ashley Judd give interviews in nearby rooms of the large complex at the base of Main Street here, all of them sponsored by various companies like Philips and Yahoo! Mock has found a quiet corner of an Asian restaurant that's been converted into the Heineken Lounge for the run of the festival.
Told that she's considered an icon by her fellow documentary filmmakers, Mock lets out a gentle laugh. But she's reached a point in her career where she can consistently make movies and be confident that the financing will be there for her.
People who aspire to be as acclaimed as Mock are making their own low-budget films in all parts of the country — actually all around the world — and often using similar equipment. The catch is getting their movies seen.
Mock has come to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival to promote her latest film, Wresting with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, a fascinating and engaging look at the playwright best known for Angels in America and his tireless activism for social justice.
She's been to Sundance before, most recently in 1999 for her Vietnam documentary Return With Honor. Mock comes for one simple reason — to guarantee that her film will be seen by film company executives who might decide to distribute her film so others can watch it.
Sundance, celebrating the 25th year of its filmmakers institute, is the key festival for filmmakers who want to sell their films and themselves. If a filmmaker — whether a veteran like Mock, an up-and-comer like Hilary Brougher or an audacious avant-garde artist like Larry Clark — wants his or her movie to be seen and sold, he or she understands that Sundance is important.
There's constant gridlock on the streets and sidewalks of Park City, the festival's mountain ski-resort town home. There's also a deeper, emotional gridlock.
It's easy to buy a video camera, but getting into Sundance and being treated like a professional is harder than ever. There are only so many festival slots for movies. The digital revolution has yet to make it easy for filmmakers to get their works to audiences in a professional manner, though that could change soon.
On Friday, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, a thriller set in the southeastern Ohio river town of Belpre, opens in select art-house theaters nationwide. But the point of the digital revolution is for everyone from anywhere, especially small towns like Belpre, to be able to watch Bubble if they want. (See the feature story on page 53.)
Three days after it opens in theaters, you'll be able to buy Bubble on DVD online and in stores for $29.95. You can pay for a one-time viewing via high-definition cable TV the same weekend it opens in theaters. No one who's heard about the film and wants to see it will miss out, no matter where they live.
Mock agrees that changes are underway in the film industry. It's become easier to make movies, and it'll soon be easier to show movies. The question is how.
A short film or a scene from a feature-length film now can play back on a mobile phone or handheld video player thanks to a just-announced deal by THINK Mobile out of Burbank, Calif. A few days ago Finn Taylor, director of the Sundance feature The Darwin Awards, sent out a scene from his film to various cell phones.
Laptop computers and handheld devices are becoming the new portable televisions. A state-of-the-art cinema still might be the ultimate goal for serious filmmakers, but a complete cinematic democracy allows digital-era filmmakers the affordable opportunity to show their movies to audiences by any means possible.
If Bubble is the dawn of a new day, then towns like Belpre, Ohio and Parkersburg, W.Va., where Soderbergh shot the digital film, will become film festivals, mini versions of Sundance, every night of the week.
Local Lions
"We're one of the first films to use the digital revolution, and it feels like we're the last one to get finished," Steven Bognar says, taking a much-needed break a few weeks ago over a spinach omelet at a diner in Cincinnati's Bond Hill neighborhood.
For their epic documentary A Lion in the House, Bognar and partner Julia Reichert edit and work out of their home in the small college town of Yellow Springs, some 90 minutes northeast of Cincinnati. Driving to and from the Cincinnati airport when they need to travel might be an inconvenience, but they've come to love Yellow Springs.
Bognar and Reichert can work anywhere, but they choose to make their home and their films in Ohio. Granted, they still travel to finish the audio and to color correct A Lion in the House at professional processing labs in New York City or Los Angeles. When it comes to moviemaking, there are still some things you can't do professionally on your desktop.
But those tasks are diminishing, and it won't be long before a home office in Yellow Springs can match the quality of a Los Angeles film lab. Imagine the ability to make a movie at home that looks as good as something done by a studio — that's when the digital revolution will be complete.
A Lion in the House is the type of sprawling documentary that finds a home at festivals like Sundance, where it's being shown on the festival's opening day. Over 230 minutes in length, Bognar and Reichert's story centers on five children and their families during their time on the cancer ward at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Few details are spared in what is an epic journey of emotion and human endurance.
The families are a diverse sample of America — black and white, affluent and poor — and yet a single ethical theme connects all the families as well as the audience. When is enough treatment enough? When do parents have to let their child die? With the memory of Terry Schiavo still fresh on the American psyche, A Lion in the House offers fresh stories and insights on a difficult issue.
Their race to get packed and prepared for Sundance still isn't over when we meet up in the days leading up to the festival. Reichert and Bognar have just returned from a weekend in Los Angeles at the TV Critics Convention, a good primer for their week here. The event was a publicity whirlwind where they found themselves wedged between retired newsman Walter Cronkite and British comedian Eric Idle. Sundance promises to be more of the same — but magnified.
Actress Doris Roberts, best known for her role as Ray Romano's meddling mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, introduced A Lion in the House at the critics convention in order to give the solemn topic a celebrity boost.
"We showed just a brief sample of the film, a trailer really," Reichert says. "But the critics could watch the film in their hotel rooms and I think a number of them did."
Thirty minutes of the film plays on a laptop while Bognar and Reichert check and return messages and prepare for the drive back up to Yellow Springs. The first section of A Lion in the House is pure primer, an introduction to four of the children who appear in the movie. But during that time a bond is formed, and it becomes difficult to turn off the DVD and hand it back to its filmmakers.
The remaining sections will have to wait until its debut screening in front of Sundance audiences.
"The (TV) critics asked a lot about boundaries," Reichert says. "They wanted to know what we filmed and what we wouldn't film. It's a question we constantly asked ourselves during those daily drives back and from Children's Hospital."
The uncertainty about appropriate behavior between filmmaker and subject remains despite the fact that the film has been finished for some weeks.
"I know that I wanted to be a good person as much as a good filmmaker," Bognar says, before getting up from the diner booth. "If a family member needs someone to hold them during tears, then I'm going to put the camera down and hold them. I'm going to do what's right, and I believe I can still get the footage."
Welcome to Gridlock
Bognar and Reichert didn't need Sundance to produce or finish A Lion in the House. They were able to piece together the necessary financing and make the movie they wanted to make. And they don't need Sundance to show it — the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) plans a nationwide telecast in June.
But if Bognar and Reichert want to experience A Lion in the House as a big-screen movie, Sundance is the final piece of the filmmaking puzzle. They could rent a theater in their hometown of Yellow Springs and fill it with friends, family and movie junkies, but if they want the film to be seen by the most amount of people — if they want to pay off all debts or perhaps make some money, and if they want to the film to be taken seriously and improve their chance at making that next movie — they need Sundance. It's one of only a small handful of film festivals where movies like this are celebrated and seen by professionals in the film industry. Moviemakers might be scattered across all corners of America and the world, but Sundance is that one ship they need to board, and there's only so much room.
A Lion in the House is one of only 16 American documentary films competing for a Jury Prize here, proof of how far Bognar and Reichert have already come with the film.
"The families, our crew and some of the Children's Hospital staff you'll meet in the film are here, and we'll invite them down for questions and answers after the screening," Bognar tells the crowd just before the lights dim in the Prospector Square Theatre, a large auditorium attached to a longstanding hotel and resort near the festival headquarters.
Tips provided by Bognar and Reichert to their Lion stars include carrying food in one's pockets, dressing in layers and drinking plenty of water. What hasn't been emphasized is the dizzy feeling of walking into an auditorium and being the focus of hundreds of strangers.
The first afternoon is one of the busiest times at Sundance, but there's a sizable crowd for the film, almost capacity, an amazing achievement for such subject matter.
Still, whether the majority of festival press will dedicate four hours to a single film remains anyone's guess. Chances for a Jury Prize are the farthest thing from Bognar and Reichert's minds.
They're feeling good about the film during the debut screening, and most of the audience stays until the very end. The response is emotional and enthusiastic.
The families and the crew join the two directors onstage, but there's little time for questions. The next film has to start. So Bognar, Reichert and their Lion families retreat to the theater snack bar to celebrate and talk to whomever has time.
The festival is just underway, and more screenings are planned. But the premiere has proven to these families and filmmakers that their journeys together paid off with a climax worthy of their time, energy and hearts.
All That Glitters
The largest Sundance crowds — a mix of press, publicists and public — gather a mile away from the closest screening venue. This might sound like a strange thing to say at a film festival, but movies matter less at the massive two-story white tent known as The Village at the Lift.
Located adjacent to the Main Street ski lift, The Village is a sprawling complex of company-sponsored gift houses where filmmakers and actors can choose clothes, electronics and other newly introduced goods. It's also a popular place for celebrity interviews.
True independents like Bognar and Reichert never come close to The Village at the Lift — they couldn't get in if they tried. But celebrity junkies line up along the outside sidewalk and a nearby pedestrian bridge desperate for a photo of Jennifer Aniston, in town to promote her film Friends With Money, or Paris Hilton, in town just to be seen.
The crowds rush Aniston on her way to the tent, forcing her publicist to swing at the crowd and pull the famous actress inside. The fans outnumber tent security staff 100-to-1, and it's surprising no one has gotten hurt.
Aniston knows firsthand about being the celebrity deer in the headlights thanks to constant paparazzi and tabloid reporters interested in her every move. It's the clichéd price of stardom, one she accepts.
"I can still go out and do things," Aniston says, sitting with her Friends With Money co-star and close friend Catherine Keener. "I can go to a book store. I can go out."
Quiet time in the tent provides some fun for Aniston and Keener, and they laugh frequently while recounting pranks they play on each other.
"It feels great to be in a film like Friends With Money," Aniston says. "I would be honored if Nicole (Holofcener, the film's director) would have me in her next film."
Coming to Sundance with Friends With Money offers Aniston a chance to give an easygoing performance in a likable female tale. It's a credibility boost she understands and appreciates.
The appearance of celebrities guarantees Sundance a media spotlight like no other. The attention is a good thing, if it can trickle down to other films.
Over at another large tent — this one outside the Holiday Village Theaters — Park City's lone multiplex and home to many festival screenings — Bognar waits in the lobby for the second public screening of A Lion in the House to start. The spotlight glow of the previous day's premiere is over, even though Bognar, Reichert and everyone involved with the film celebrated after the show at a Main Street restaurant.
Bognar is feeling good but tired. He's going to introduce the film himself, and Reichert will join him for the post-screening question and answer session.
Audiences are responding to A Lion in the House, but there's no denying the emotional heartache of the stories they're sharing. And that's another hope for the digital revolution and total film democracy — a movie doesn't have to be a crowd pleaser to get a shot in front of a crowd.
Look for Steve Ramos' SUNDANCE DIARIES throughout the remainder of the festival at citybeat.com. See next week's issue for a complete 2006 Sundance Film Festival wrapup.
