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Five highlights of the Sundance Film Festival

Kai Ryssdal Feb 2, 2015
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Five highlights of the Sundance Film Festival

Kai Ryssdal Feb 2, 2015
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Netflix and Amazon attended the Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah, this year – looking to make digital distribution an option for independent filmmakers. So were the digital companies a big hit at the festival?

“Not really,” says Wesley Morris, film critic at Grantland. “I think what you’re going to see is people feeling Amazon out. I think filmmakers really do want to feel like their movie is at a movie studio, and they have a deal to reflect that. And for now, Sundance is their number one distribution deal.”

One festival highlight was “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”

“It is a very charming, really well-made movie about a guy who befriends a dying girl,” says Morris. “And when you’re watching that movie and you get to the last 10 to 15 minutes, as someone said to me – when I was like ‘I’m not going to be moved by this at all’ – ‘you won’t be human if you aren’t.'”

“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” swept the festival awards and was picked up by Fox Searchlight after a bidding war.


Four more highlights from Sundance 2015:

“The End of the Tour” 

“Tangerine”

“The Wolfpack”

“Results”

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