As both a pre-eminent showcase for American independent cinema and a freewheeling bazaar for movie executives Sundance is carefully scrutinized for signals about where creative, low-budget movies are headed. If these filmmakers represent the future, what’s on their minds?
Sundance programmers on Wednesday announced a schedule of 58 features and documentaries in competition, culled from 3,812 submissions, that answers that question with more clarity than usual.
“We certainly do not intend to create themes,” said John Cooper, the festival’s director. “But there does seem to be some similar things that are permeating the minds of artists today.”
Most noticeable among the competing films is a lack of movie stars, who have flocked to independent film over the last decade in search of meatier roles, a patina of hipness and Oscar statuettes. Last year’s competition slate included the usual parade of fame in multiple pictures: Natalie Portman, James Franco, Michelle Williams, Orlando Bloom, James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart. This year, only one entry, “The Loved Ones,” has the slightest whiff of mainstream star power. Featuring Demi Moore and a clutch of indie favorites — Ellen Burstyn, Ellen Barkin, Thomas Haden Church — “The Loved Ones” centers on a chaotic wedding in a highly dysfunctional family.
Where have all the stars gone? It could be a passing illusion. Sundance’s slate of films out of competition, which will be announced on Thursday, will undoubtedly be stuffed with them. Maybe programmers just didn’t think some star-driven pictures were up to snuff. Or, some industry veterans speculated, the shortage could mean that a segment of indie film, its financing hurt by the credit crisis and the recession, has grown too small to attract top-tier names.
“For whatever reason, there aren’t as many big stars doing an independent turn as in past years, and that’s perfectly fine with us,” said Mr. Cooper, nodding to criticism in years past that Sundance was too hung up on marquee names.
The competition slate is also notable for an unusual diversity of stories, albeit many centered on teenagers. “Another Earth” is a science-fiction-tinged tale of a tragedy that alters the lives of two strangers on the eve of the discovery of a duplicate Earth. “Benavides Born” looks at a teenage girl who is a power lifter. “Here” stars the critical favorite Ben Foster (“Alpha Dog”) as a cartographer on assignment to create a satellite survey of Armenia.
“There has been a swing toward greater authenticity,” Mr. Cooper said. “Young filmmakers for a time were more consumed with trying to make something that would sell. Now there seems to be more of a feeling that they should just make the movie they want to make.”
One of the more intriguing entries is “Higher Ground,” directed by Vera Farmiga, who is known for her roles in “Down to the Bone,” “The Departed” and “Up in the Air,” from last year, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Ms. Farmiga, a first-time director, also stars in “Higher Ground,” as a frustrated mother who turns to a fundamentalist group for answers (several Sundance selections look at religion and faith).
Like Ms. Farmiga and in keeping with Sundance custom, most of the feature directors in competition are behind the camera for the first time or have limited experience in shorts. One exception is Azazel Jacobs, whose “Momma’s Man” had a celebrated turn at the festival in 2008. Mr. Jacobs returns with “Terri,” the story of an orphan whose unlikely friendship with a vice principal helps him overcome ruthless teasing.
The festival’s documentary slate conspicuously lacks the searing military stories of previous years. There are no war-related entries in the United States documentary competition and only one in the World Cinema documentary race: the British production “Hell and Back Again,” an examination of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of one Marine, who has a distressing return to the United States.
The selected documentaries tackle serious subjects — environmental radicalism, assisted suicide — but also show a lighthearted side. There are three entries with music themes, including a look at the 1990s hip-hop act A Tribe Called Quest called “Beats, Rhymes and Life,” directed by the actor Michael Rapaport (“Zebrahead,” the television series “The War at Home.”) “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey” falls squarely in the heartwarming category.
Jennifer Seibel Newsom, the wife of Gavin Newsom, who soon leaves his job as mayor of San Francisco to become California’s lieutenant governor, examines the mainstream media’s portrayals of women in “Miss Representation.” (Another documentary with a Big Media focus is “Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times,” directed by Andrew Rossi.)
The festival is scheduled Jan. 20 to 30 in Park City, Utah. (A full list of films in competition can be found at nytimes.com/carpetbagger.) On Thursday Sundance will unveil its features out of competition.
Feature-length submissions from the United States totaled 1,943 — a slight increase from last year — while foreign feature-length submissions inched up to 1,869. There was a sharp increase in the number of submitted shorts, particularly from overseas, perhaps the result of the growing affordability and ubiquity of digital filmmaking equipment.
Over all, total submissions crossed the 10,000 mark for the first time; to compare, the festival received about 7,000 submissions in 2006, a year when independent film was considered to be in full bloom.
The physical strain of screening all of those submissions, festival staffers say, pales in comparison to the aggressive push by agents, investors and some directors to sway the selection process. “To remain independent these days,” Mr. Cooper said, “takes relentless vigilance.”
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