Slamdance International Film Festival21 - 28 Jan 2010 (annual)Utah's Slamdance International Film Festival describes itself as "a support system for new filmmakers", with a screenplay competition, touring screenings and an incredibly large range of entries. Run by filmmakers for filmmakers, the Slamdance International Film Festival was started in Utah in 1995 as an alternative to Sundance. Since then it has grown and grown: they've held screenings in Stockholm, Santiago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC. For the general film buff, it's a great chance to see an incredibly diverse range of new indies from all over the world. For filmmakers and industry professionals, it's an important opportunity to investigate an enormous pool of talent.
The main feature competition is devoted to first-time, low-budget films which have yet to find a US distributor. The guidelines for Utah's Slamdance International Film Festival are extremely flexible, though; this is, after all, a filmmakers' film festival, and large numbers of shorts as well as films shot on video and digital are screened. The programming process is "uniquely consensus-based", meaning that every slot in the competition is fair game until the final slate is announced.
The Slamdance International Film Festival, like its simultaneous sister festival Nodance, is an alternative to the more mainstream Sundance, and a real opportunity to explore films that we rarely get to see. |
