PARK CITY, Utah — It’s a good night for one party of Sundance Film Festival diners at the Blind Dog Restaurant and Sushi Bar.
“I want to shake you. I love you,” director Denis Villeneuve tells Sony Pictures Classics co-founder Michael Barker, sitting across from him.
Earlier in the day the director from Quebec learned his film “Incendies” is one of five vying for the Oscar for best foreign-language film.
“We were up at 5:30 making pancakes, we were so excited,” said Villeneuve whose producers, Luc Dery and Kim McCraw, sat nearby. With the announcement, he became an instant national hero in Canada. He heard from Quebec’s prime minister. He fielded calls from reporters and well-wishers. His father was interviewed on national TV. “I am working with 5 percent of my brain,” he said with sweet weariness.
Yes, it was a good day. And the Sundance Film Festival was well acknowledged by the ritual reading of the nominees for the Academy Awards, which take place Feb. 27. Last year’s breakouts “Winter’s Bone” and “The Kids Are All Right,” received best-picture nods, as well as other kudos. Three docs that screened at last year’s fest also were recognized: “Gasland,” “Waste Land,” “Restrepo” and “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”
The Sundance Film Festival is one of the globe’s top festivals. And each January, the event, which ends Sunday, floods the resort town of Park City with filmmakers and actors, producers and distributors, wannabes and gonnabes. And, yes, there is a goodly share of civilian moviegoers queuing in the snow or crystalline chill for some of the best independent work that film culture has to offer.
That said, much of this year’s fare felt muffled. The docs are strong, but it isn’t clear what features might get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences treatment a year from now.
Yes, distributors were buying — a great thing for moviemakers, even if prices were down. After one of those crackling “press and industry” screenings, Roadside Attractions bought the Wall Street drama “Margin Call.” First-time feature writer-director J.C. Chandor pens biting dialogue and gets muscular performances from his enviable ensemble of Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore.
But resounding critical buzz — particularly about narrative features — remained elusive. My list of films that impressed includes a number of movies that heralded fresh talents or savvy documentary sensibility, among them “Pariah,” “The Guard” and “Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times.” Had I seen “Incendies” at Sundance instead of the Telluride Film Festival, it would easily have been at the top of my list. Based on a play, “Incendies” has none of the staginess but all of the Greek tragedy of classic drama as its protagonist — one of two siblings — travels from Canada to Lebanon to uncover secrets her mother hinted at in her will.
As always, the festival had its share of outside-the-theater energy. Demi and Ashton were seen. So too Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Kerry Washington . . . the A-list goes on. Harry Belafonte, the subject of “Sing Your Song,” about his long career as an activist, was in town.
Protesters stood outside the high school that provides the fest its biggest theater while writer-director Kevin Smith’s quasi-horror film “Red State” premiered. Michael Parks gives a tremendously uncanny performance — in a terrifically maddening film — as an evangelical preacher obsessed with homosexuality. Pastor Abin Cooper and his flock of family were inspired by Kansas minister Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, whose protests outside funerals are infamous.
Arguably the biggest event took place on the fest’s first Saturday, when an invitation-only crowd at the Sundance House on Main Street listened as Oprah Winfrey announced the Oprah Winfrey Network was launching OWN Documentaries, a project she hopes will have the same impact for nonfiction film her book club had for writers and publishers.
Adding to its slate of films, OWN Documentaries picked up “Becoming Chaz.” The incredibly intimate story of Chastity Bono’s gender transformation from female to male is directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and “Party Monster” fame.
Back at the dinner table, Academy Award hopeful Villeneuve recounts his finest Oscar moment thus far. It began the night before the awards announcement, when he talked on the phone with 14-year-old daughter Salome.
“She said ‘Papa, it’s too much pressure for me. As soon as you know, text me please.’ ”
The two-hour time difference meant Villeneuve would be texting her while she was in class, where cellphones are forbidden. Still, he wrote in French, “Papa is going to the Oscars.”
She could not contain herself. Who could? She let out a cheer, which then had to be explained to the teacher.
When it was: more cheering.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com; also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
