Slamdance Offers Alternative To Sundance
Even the Utah operator was confused.
“Slamdance? I have no listing in Park City under that name, sir.”
“It’s a film festival,” I said.
“Oh, you mean Sundance,” she replies.
Well, actually, no. I meant Slamdance, the alternative film festival that runs concurrently with the more prestigious, if equally alternative-minded, Sundance Film Festival.
Confusing? Sure. And the organizers probably like it that way.
After all, their minifestival - which isn’t so mini any more, having this year accepted 13 features and 16 shorts out of 1,300 entries - began four years ago in Salt Lake City when a group of filmmakers, rejected by Sundance, decided to hold their own show.
The Slamdance symbol: a dog (underdog?) named Sparky, which is the same name of the festival awards.
Held at the top of Park City’s historic district, at the Treasure Mountain Inn, Slamdance is strictly low rent. The two screening rooms consist of little more than folding chairs set up before refrigerator-size screens.
But tickets are cheap ($5), easy to purchase (plenty of tickets were available on opening day), and the movies are every bit as good as those showing at the more established Sundance.
Slamdance’s 1996 prize winner, in fact, was a movie called “The Daytrippers,” which not only earned a wide release (it played Spokane) but, reportedly, a tidy profit, too.
Sticking to its purpose of screening the works of first-time filmmakers working on a small budget, this year’s festival included such works as Chris Chan Lee’s “Yellow,” Wiktor Grodeck’s “Mandragora,” Gary Burns’ “Kitchen Party” and the documentary “Independent’s Day.”
Slamdance earned a special bit of prestige this year when it held a special screening of “Kurt and Courtney,” the Nick Broomfield documentary that had been pulled from the Sundance schedule. Faced with the threat of a lawsuit by Courtney Love, the actress and widow of Kurt Cobain who accused Broomfield of not securing rights to Cobain’s music, Sundance organizers wanted to avoid legal problems.
Slamdance jumped on it. And, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “within a day, distribution offers were on the table.”
As the Slamdance festival motto says, “Trudge up the hill. Watch a movie. Meet the new breed.”
, DataTimes