I saw 24 full length features during this festival. I'm having difficulty picking the "best" of the festival, because while there were several very good movies, I can't pick any that really got me. But here are the movies I liked the most, in some sort of order:
Sweet Land ( IMDB / website )
Puppy ( IMDB / website )
Brothers of The Head ( IMDB / website )
Independent, Doin' Major Things ( IMDB / website )
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound To Lose ( IMDB / website )
Crossing Arizona ( IMDB / website )
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story ( IMDB / website )
What's odd for me is that I saw several narratives that I liked (Sweet Land, Puppy, Brothers of The Head); in the past I've tended to avoid narratives (sticking to documentaries) because I usually find them tiresome, silly and cliche'd. This year they were ... just good.
When setting up my schedule for this year's festival, I found that there was a LOT that I wanted to see, and I think that can be attributed to a programing shift at the festival. Apparently they decided to go decidedly more "indie" this year, and all I can say is that I liked this festival noticeably more than past years. None of the movies were out-of-the-park hits for me personally, but there were a lot of good ones, and it was time well spent. The tradeoff of leaning towards independents as that we don't get to see the movies that made big waves at Sundance, like God Grew Tired Of Us, Iraq In Fragments, American Hardcore, etc. But I don't mind that so much since those are likely to get distribution some other way, either via theaterical or DVD release.
Logistically, this festival avoided the messes of last year: there were hardly any technical problems, no cancelled screenings, all the information was at our fingertips on the website, etc. Hopefully next year they'll figure out the GSU parking situation better.
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