Background on blogging from Sundance

I love film festivals. I ran one for two years while Iwas an undergrad at the Universityof Iowa. I can (and Iintend to this week) see as many as five films per - day.

The great thing about a film festival is that when you sitdown in the theater, you never know what you are about toexperience. It could be the greatest film ever or the worst. No way oftelling. This is because no one has seen the film (except the programmersand the filmmakers of course.)

I selected my films for this week a month ago. All Ihad to go on was the description in the catalog. No review. No word ofmouth. It's great. The best way to see a film.

I remember a Sundance a number of years back. I saw afilm at the Library, a venue in ParkCity. I sat withSarah Pillsbury, a native Minnesotan and a wonderful filmmaker ("Desperately SeekingSusan," "American Quilt" and this year at Sundance "Quidpro quo.") We were there to watch a Brazilian film. The lightswent down, the film started and it was a beautiful, lyrical film, one of thebest films I have ever seen. The film Sarah and I saw was "CentralStation," a wonderful film made even better by the experience ofdiscovering it on my own.

Expectations can color and even ruin a filmexperience. Better to make up your own mind. Discovering a greatfilm on your own is a delight.

Of the hundreds of film festivals in the United States, the premiere film festival forthe independent film industry is the Sundance Film Festival held each year inJanuary in Park City, Utah. Sundance has defined anddirected the independent film industry for many years. It is theover-caffeinated, over-crowded and over-affected must-attend event of the yearfor the independent film business.

For 10 days in January, this small town of about 8,500people is invaded by almost 50,000 20-something to 30-something party athleteswho leave behind about $40,000,000.

I am here to do business: meet clients and potentialclients, distributors, financiers and people who can help my clients and theirfilm projects.

I was interested to learn that the first two films to besold at Sundance this year were documentaries. HBO Doc Films' acquired"The Black List: Volume One." Zeitgeist picked up the NationalFilm Board of Canada's "Up the Yangtze," "The Black List" isabout African American leaders and the experiences on a personal level andsocietal level with racism. "Up the Yangtze," is a film aboutthe Three Gorges dam in Chinathat is shaping up to be a gigantic ecological disaster. Unfortunately,neither film is on my list.

The documentary form is increasing embraced by independentfilmmakers. You can tell just as compelling a story (there is somethingthat rivets me to a story that is not only interesting - but real), and you canbe more adventurous in the structure and audiences will stay with you. And the best news for independents is that the budgets for documentaries arelower on average that narrative features.

Documentary features are to the movie industry whatindependent features were when Sundance got its start 27 years ago. 10years ago documentary films were rarely released theatrically. Now thereare big audiences for documentary features. A market has been created bythe successes of documentaries such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit9/11" (2004) and "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) ,"Spellbound" (2002) , "Super Size Me" (2004) , "Murderball," "Marchof the Penguins" (2005), and "An InconvenientTruth" (2007).

And this year the first two films sold at Sundance aredocumentaries.

- Dan Satorius