Independent's Day

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, But Lacks Depth
Review: Independent's Day is a brief film shot on less than a modest budget. Interspersed between candid interviews with dozens of novice filmmakers are cuts of the infamous week at the Sundance Film Festival. Notable comments are made by Sydney Pollack, Robert Ebert, actress Parker Posey, director Steven Soderberg ("Sex, Lies & Videotape") and many others. Robert Redford appears briefly in archive footage from past Sundance events. There is much to hear from these young filmmakers, such as the horror stories of impossible deadlines, going into great debt and other hard luck stories, only to have their film dismissed and lost forever. More interesting is the offspring event for independent filmmakers like "Slamdance", a vital alternative to Sundance. It's worthy to note that in 1987, 50 films were submitted to Sundance and 800 were submitted in 1997. This is a direct result of the huge success of previous Sundance award winners. It would have been nice to have heard more stories of the parties and the extent to which filmmakers will go to get their films made. Some of them are outrageous. For a short, `independent' film, this documentary slightly satisfies, but falls short when considering what it might have been. A fitting example of what happens to most of the Sundance entries.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, But Lacks Depth
Review: Independent's Day is a brief film shot on less than a modest budget. Interspersed between candid interviews with dozens of novice filmmakers are cuts of the infamous week at the Sundance Film Festival. Notable comments are made by Sydney Pollack, Robert Ebert, actress Parker Posey, director Steven Soderberg ("Sex, Lies & Videotape") and many others. Robert Redford appears briefly in archive footage from past Sundance events. There is much to hear from these young filmmakers, such as the horror stories of impossible deadlines, going into great debt and other hard luck stories, only to have their film dismissed and lost forever. More interesting is the offspring event for independent filmmakers like "Slamdance", a vital alternative to Sundance. It's worthy to note that in 1987, 50 films were submitted to Sundance and 800 were submitted in 1997. This is a direct result of the huge success of previous Sundance award winners. It would have been nice to have heard more stories of the parties and the extent to which filmmakers will go to get their films made. Some of them are outrageous. For a short, 'independent' film, this documentary slightly satisfies, but falls short when considering what it might have been. A fitting example of what happens to most of the Sundance entries.

Rating:
Summary: A great documentary for those interested in independent work
Review: Is a great documentary, because it shows how Sundance Film Festival works. Interviews with new and not so new in the film arena directors. Is inspiring to see all kind of people talking about their work and points of view about the festival. What they gave for being there, what they won, what they lost. I ask to Director Zenovich to make a second part of this video, because with the new Digital Revolution, it would be interesting to see the impact in the film festivals, compared with the time when she did the current video (1997), when digital revolution had not begun yet.