Slamdance gets Soderbergh and Sundance goes on the road

(AFP PHOTO / ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT)

Director/producer Steven Soderbergh will have a world premiere of And Everything Is Going Fine on January 23 at the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The documentary portrays the life and work of his friend, the late performance artist Spalding Gray.

Slamdance runs January 21-28, concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival, positioning itself as the rival to the main attraction. Its motto, "By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers," maintains it is the truer independent film festival. It received a record 5,000 submissions this year.

The low-budget horror hit film, Paranormal Activity screened last year at Slamdance and its other discoveries include directors such as Jared Hell ( Napoleon Dynamite), Marc Forster ( Monster's Ball) and Steven Soderbergh.

Soderbergh ( sex, lies and videotape, Che, Traffic, and Oceans 11, 12 and 13) will also participate in Slamdance's annual Filmmaker Summit, to discuss the future of films, changes in financing, distribution and new technology. He produces films in support of emerging directors, such as The Daytrippers, directed by Greg Mottola and winner of Slamdance's first Jury prize.

Meanwhile, across town in Park City, the Sundance Film Institute will take its festival on the road with the inauguration of the USA Touring Program this year. Eight films from the 2010 program will be screened in eight US cities on January 28.
The films include Philip Seymour Hoffman's Jack Goes Boating (Music Box Theatre, Chicago), Adrian Grenier's Teenage Paparazzo (Downtown Independent, Los Angeles), Floria Sigismondi's ‘The Runaways' (Sundance Cinemas Madison, Madison, Wis.) and, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's "Howl" (Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco).

The filmmakers will introduce their films at the theaters and participate in Q&A with the audience.

www.slamdance.com

http://festival.sundance.org/2010/

RC