Hailing a wider global perspective in American film-making and a compelling array of international work, Sundance festival director Geoff Gilmore unveiled the 64 Independent Film and World Cinema documentaries and dramatic films that will play in competition in the 2007 event, which runs from Jan 18 to 28.
'American film-makers are becoming much more self-aware,' Gilmore said.
'American films have evolved from an insularity to a more international perspective. Since 9/11 we've seen a globalisation in film in general and that's being reflected in a much broader aesthetic.
'What underscores this is that we've got five films financed by American money that are partly or wholly in foreign languages.' The films are Adrift In Manhattan (Spanish), Four Sheets To The Wind (Native American Seminole), Padre Nuestro (Spanish), Never Forever (Korean), and The Pool (Hindi).
Director of programming John Cooper pointed to several films that were likely to generate early buzz. From the Independent Feature Dramatic Competition he highlighted Teeth, Mitchell Lichtenstein's feminist revenge saga about a woman who grows teeth inside her vagina; John Cusack's 'transformative role' as a widower and father in James C Strouse's Grace Is Gone; and Dakota Fanning playing a rape victim in The Untitled Dakota Fanning Project, AKA Hounddog. Cooper also singled out Independent Documentary Competition entries Zoo, Robinson Devor's expose of seemingly normal people who enjoy sex with animals, and Crazy Love from Dan Klores, about an obsessive lover affair.
Hot international dramatic entries include Diego Luna in Jorge Hernandez Aldana's Mexican drama The Night Buffalo, an intense tale of revenge co-written by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's regular collaborator Guillermo Arriaga; Nick Broomfield's UK immigration saga Ghosts; Ian Iqbal Rashid's Canadian tale How She Move, about a girl who rediscovers 'Step' dancing after her sister's death forces her to return to the ghetto; and Matthew Saville's Australia drama Noise, about a young police officer with afflicted with chronic ear rigning who is forced to deal with a suburban commuter train disaster.
Overseas documentaries of note include The Future Is Unwritten, Julien Temple's Ireland-UK biopic of The Clash founder Joe Strummer; Uli Gaulke's German story Comrades In Dreams about four cinephiles united by their belief in the transformative power of cinema; Norwegian film-maker Petr Lom's On A Tightrope, about Chinese orphans from the country's largest Muslim community; and Shimon Dotan's Israeli film Hot House, which explores how Israeli prisons have become terrorist breeding grounds.
'We've travelled a lot in the last three years to find the best of global cinema and it's a tremendous amount of responsibility to choose from so many submissions, but you just have to go with the films that work,' Cooper said. 'We also owe a responsibility to the audience and we have to show them an alternative to Hollywood. If you could see the seven of us arguing the merits of each film you'd see how intense the process gets. Some will inevitably get left on the floor and it's heartbreaking. This is always a bittersweet time.'
'At the end of the day we have to make choices and we refuse to make the festival twice the size it already is,' Gilmore added. 'We don't want to be the size of Toronto. We're not necessarily showing works by established film-makers; we're bringing work that oftentimes come from out of nowhere. We've had more submissions this year than ever before and we're very aggressive about trying not to programme our festival from other festivals; that's not how you discover new work. You've got to go out into the global arena and talk to a range of different people because that's what opens us up to discovery, which is part and parcel of what Sundance has always been about. Then it becomes very gratifying to see new work enter the market place, although that isn't particularly our agenda.'
The 2007 festival comprises 122 features including 82 world premieres, 23 North American premieres and 11 US premieres from 25 countries, with nearly 60 first or second-time feature filmmakers.
The Premieres, Spectrum, Park City at Midnight, New Frontier and From The Sundance Collection categories will be announced on Nov 30. The Short Film programme will be announced on Wednesday, Dec 6.
The films were selected from 3,287 feature submissions comprising 1,852 US and 1,435 international projects. By way of comparison in 2006 there were 1,764 submissions from the US and 1,384 from overseas.Festival films screen in nine sections: Documentary Competition, Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, Spectrum, New Frontier, Park City at Midnight, From the Sundance Collection, and Premieres.
INDEPENDENT FILM COMPETITION: DOCUMENTARY
Banished
Dir: Marco Williams
Explores the legacy of the 20th century expulsion of African American populations from three US towns.
World Premiere
Chasing Ghosts
Dir: Lincoln Ruchti
The 1982 Video Game World Champions reflect on success, life, and groupies.
World Premiere
Crazy Love
Dir: Dan Klores
Chronicles the obsessive relationship between a married man and a single 20-year-old woman that began in 1957.
World Premiere
Everything's Cool
Dirs: Judith Helfand and Daniel B Gold
Global warming activists lobby governments to adopt alternative energy programmes.
World Premiere
For The Bible Tells Me So
Dir: Daniel Karslake
Examines how the Religious Right interprets the Bible to stigmatise the gay community.
World Premiere
Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib
Dir: Rory Kennedy
Celebrated documentarian and daughter of Bobby Kennedy investigates the 2003 Iraqi prison abuse scandal.
World Premiere
Girl 27
Dir: David Stenn
One of old Hollywood's biggest scandals comes under the spotlight as Stenn explores the rape of an underage dancer at a wild MGM party in 1937.
World Premiere
Hear And Now
Dir: Irene Taylor Brodsky
Brodsky follows her deaf parents as they undergo cochlear implant surgery in order to hear unaided for the first time in their lives.
World Premiere
Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)
Dir: Jason Kohn
The inherent violence and corruption of Brazil informs the bizarre lives of a politician, a businessman and a plastic surgeon.
World Premiere
My Kid Could Paint That
Dir: Amir Bar-Lev
A four-year-old girl has sold $300,000 dollars worth of paintings - but is she really a genius, a charlatan, or simply a pawn in her parents' bid for fame and fortune'
World Premiere
Nanking
Dirs: Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman
Recounts the heroic exploits of a handful of Westerners as the invading Japanese army perpetrated atrocities on the Chinese during the second world war.
World Premiere
No End In Sight
Dir: Charles Ferguson
Key participants offer insights into the Bush Administration's policy on the Iraq War and Occupation.
World Premiere
Protagonist
Dir: Jessica Yu
A German terrorist, a bank robber, an 'ex-gay' evangelist and a martial arts student undergo similar epiphanies.
World Premiere
War Dance
Dirs: Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Child refugees from the Ugandan civil war travel to the national music and dance festival.
World Premiere
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki
Dir: Steven Okazaki
Explores the human cost of atomic warfare.
World Premiere
Zoo
Dir: Robinson Devor
Uncovers the secret life of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely demise following intercourse with a horse.
World Premiere
INDEPENDENT FEATURE FILM COMPETITION: DRAMATIC
Adrift In Manhattan
Dir: Alfredo de Villa
A grieving eye doctor, an aging artist and a young photographer confront their innermost demons in New York.
World Premiere
Broken English
Dir: Zoe Cassavetes
John Cassavetes' daughter makes her feature directorial debut with the story of a lonely young woman who meets an inspiring Frenchman.
World Premiere
Four Sheets To The Wind
Dir: Sterlin Harjo
A grieving Native American man disposes of his father's body in the family pond and sets off to start a new life Tulsa, Oklahoma. The film is a product of Sundance's June film-makers and screenwriters lab in 2004.
World Premiere
The Good Life
Dir: Steve Berra
The life of a 'mostly normal' manager of a smalltown arthouse cinema is shaken up when he encounters a mysterious young woman. Ensemble cast includes Mark Webber, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Paxton and Harry Dean Stanton.
World Premiere
Grace Is Gone
Dir: James C Strouse
A young father takes his children on a road trip after he learns that his wife has been killed in Iraq.
World Premiere
Joshua
Dir: George Ratliff
A Machiavellian eight-year-old Manhattan prodigy causes a stink when his newborn baby sister arrives home from the hospital. Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga and Michael McKean star.
World Premiere
Never Forever
Dir: Gina Kim
Vera Farmiga plays an American woman unable to conceive who begins an affair in a desperate attempt to save her marriage.
World Premiere
On the Road With Judas
Dir: J J Lask
Reality, fiction and the notions of storytelling intertwine in the story of a young thief and the woman he loves.
World Premiere
Padre Nuestro
Dir: Christopher Zalla
Fleeing a criminal past, Juan hops on a truck transporting illegal Mexican immigrants to New York City, where he meets a man who is searching for his rich father.
World Premiere
The Pool
Dir: Chris Smith
A boy working in an Indian hotel becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in an opulent suburb of Goa and sets out to meet the mysterious family that lives there.
World Premiere
Rocket Science
Dir: Jeffrey Blitz
Blitz' dramatic debut following his successful documentary Spellbound centres on a New Jersey teenager with a stammer who is thrust into the world of competitive debating when he falls in love with the star of the debate team. HBO produced and Picturehouse is releasing in North America.
World Premiere
Snow Angels
Dir: David Gordon Green
Acclaimed Arkansan film-maker returns with a drama about the life of a teenager, his former baby-sitter, her estranged husband, and their daughter. Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Griffin Dunne and Amy Sedaris star.
World Premiere
Starting Out In The Evening
Dir: Andrew Wagner
A writer's solitary life is shaken up when an ambitious graduate student convinces him that her thesis will revive his fame.
World Premiere
Teeth
Dir: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Feminist revenge saga about a high school student who grows teeth inside her vagina when she becomes the object of male violence.
World premiere
The Untitled Dakota Fanning Project, AKA Hounddog
Dir: Deborah Kampmeier
The 12-year-old A-lister plays a precocious rape victim in the 1950s Deep South who finds solace in the Blues.
World Premiere
Weapons
Dir: Adam Bhala Lough
A series of seemingly random youth-related killings over the course of a weekend in American suburbia turn out to be related.
World Premiere
WORLD CINEMA COMPETITION: DOCUMENTARY
Acidente/Brazil
Dirs: Cao Guimaraes and Pablo Lobato
Lush cinematic poem weaves together stories and images from 20 cities in the Brazilian state of Menas Gerais.
North American Premiere
Bajo Juarez, The City Devouring Its Daughters/Mexico
Dir: Alejandra Sanchez
Uncovers the corruption behind a spate of sexual abuse and deaths of young women in an industrial town near the US border.
US Premiere
Cocalero/Bolivia
Director: Alejandro Landes
Charts the early campaign of Bolivian president Evo Morales to become his country's first indigenous head of state.
World Premiere
Comrades In Dreams/Germany
Dir: Uli Gaulke
Four diverse lives are united by their unconditional love of cinema and their quest to bring the magic of the silver screen to the everyday lives of those who need it most.
North American Premiere
Crossing The Line/UK
Director: Daniel Gordon
Recounts the clandestine life of Joseph Dresnok who, at the height of the Cold War, was one of the few Americans who defected to North Korea.
North American Premiere
Enemies Of Happiness (Vores Lykkes Fjender)/Denmark
Dirs: Eva Mulvad and Anja Al Erhayem
Follows Malalai Joya, a 28-year-old woman who became an elected official in Afghanistan's 2005 elections.
North American Premiere
The Future Is Unwritten/Ireland, UK
Dir: Julien Temple
The life and times of Joe Strummer, founder of the ground-breaking UK punk band The Clash.
World Premiere
Hot House/Israel
Dir: Shimon Dotan
Explores how Israeli prisons have become the breeding ground for the next generation of Palestinian leaders as well as the birthplace of future terrorist threats.
North American Premiere
In The Shadow Of The Moon/UK
Dir: David Sington
Astronauts from the Apollo Space Programme reflect on their trip to the Moon and the delicate state of our planet.
World Premiere
Manufactured Landscapes/Canada
Director: Jennifer Baichwal
Profiles the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky as he chronicles how industry is transforming the global landscape.
US Premiere
The Monastery: Mr Vig And The Nun/Denmark
Dir: Pernille Rose Gronkjaer
An 82-year-old Danish virgin and a headstrong Russian nun transform the former's run-down castle into an Orthodox Russian monastery.
North American Premiere
On A Tightrope/Norway, Canada
Dir: Petr Lom
The lives of four orphans learning the ancient art of tightrope walking serve as a metaphor for the struggle of China's largest Muslim minority.
North American Premiere
Three Comrades (Drie Kameraden)/Netherlands
Dir: Masha Novikova
The worlds of three lifelong friends are shattered by Chechnya's bloody struggle for independence.
North American Premiere
A Very British Gangster/UK
Dir: Donal MacIntyre
A close-up look at the life of Dominic Noonan, head of one of Britain's biggest crime families.
World Premiere
VHS - Kahloucha/Tunisia
Director: Nejib Belkadhi
A Tunisian guerilla filmmaker solicits the help of his village to make films and in turn introduces his people to the power of cinema.
North American Premiere
Welcome Europa/France
Dir: Bruno Ulmer
Kurdish, Moroccan and Romanian young men struggle to forge a better life in Western Europe.
North American Premiere
WORLD CINEMA COMPETITION: DRAMATIC
Blame It On Fidel (La Faute A Fidel)/France
Dir: Julie Gavras
A nine-year-old girl undergoes fundamental life changes when her parents become radical activists in Paris in the early 1970s.
North American Premiere
Drained (O Cheiro Do Ralo)/Brazil
Dir: Heitor Dhalia
The manipulative owner of a pawn shop loses control when the perfect rump and a blocked-up toilet enter his life.
North American Premiere
Driving With My Wife's Lover (Ane-Eui Aein-Eul Mannada)/South Korea
Dir: Kim Tai-sik
An unexpected bond develops between a mild-mannered South Korean man and the cab driver who had an affair with his wife.
North American Premiere
Eagle Vs Shark/New Zealand
Dir: Taika Waititi
The tale of two socially awkward misfits and the strange ways they try to find love.
World Premiere
Ezra/France
Dir: Newton I Aduaka
A former child soldier from Sierra Leone tries to rebuild his life after civil war devastates his country.
World Premiere
Ghosts/UK
Dir: Nick Broomfield
Broomfield's latest film recounts the tragic tale of an illegal Chinese immigrant as she struggles relentlessly for a better life in the UK.
North American Premiere
How Is Your Fish Today' (Jin Tian De Yu Zen Me Yang')/UK
Dir: Xiaolu Guo
A Chinese writer takes an inner journey through his fictional characters.
North American Premiere
How She Move/Canada
Dir: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Following her sister's death from drug addiction, a teenager leaves private school and returns to her crime-filled neighborhood where she rediscovers 'Step' dancing.
World Premiere
The Island (Ostrov)/Russia
Dir: Pavel Lounguine
The bizarre conduct of a monk on a Russian Orthodox island community confuses his fellow residents but draws visitors from afar who hail him as a healer and visionary.
US Premiere
Khadak/Belgium, Germany
Dir: Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth
A Mongolian nomad confronts his destiny after animals fall victim to a plague that threatens to eradicate his way of life.
US Premiere
The Legacy/Georgia, France
Dirs: Gela Babluani, Temur Babluani
Three French hipsters embark on a road trip to reclaim the Georgian castle one of them has inherited.
North American Premiere
The Night Buffalo (El Bufalo De La Noche)/Mexico
Dir: Jorge Hernandez Aldana
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's regular collaborator Guillermo Arriaga co-wrote the story of a schizophrenic who plots to destroy his cheating girlfriend and best friend before killing himself.
World Premiere
Noise/Australia
Dir: Matthew Saville
A young police officer plagued by chronic ear ringing is plunged into the chaos that follows mass murder on a suburban train.
World Premiere
Once/Ireland
Dir: John Carney
Modern-day musical set on the streets of Dublin about a busker and an immigrant as they rehearse a performance that reveals their unique love story.
North American Premiere
Dreams Of Dust/Burkina Faso, Canada, France
Dir: Laurent Salgues
A Nigerian peasant fleeing a haunted past arrives in a dusty gold mine in Northeast Burkina Faso seeking work.
US Premiere
Sweet Mud (Adama Meshugaat)/Israel
Dir: Dror Shaul
A 1970s kibbutznik in southern Israel discovers that his mother's mental illness has distanced her from the community.
US Premiere
A complete list of films and other information is available at www.sundance.org.
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