Sundance Film Festival: The Final Days, and a Note on the Awards

This is L Magazine contributor Danielle DiGiacomo's third and final report from the Sundance Film Festival. Her previous dispatches can be found here and here.

Friday at Sundance: Getting to the Documentary Shorts program was no easy feat; it took two extra shuttle bus trips (insert long, boring anecdote here), but was well worth it, with only one semi-stinker in the bunch. That one, out of respect for the topic, shall remain nameless, but here's a hint to the filmmakers: Portishead and stock historical footage of an atrocity?! My head begins to spin — am I watching MTV News or a high school filmstrip in a dance club? Back to the good stuff. The first film in the set was Lauren Greenfield's Kids + Money, which I had picked out as one of my top Sundance choices from the program. I've been a fan of Greenfield's work since I saw photos from her exhibit about L.A. teenagers, Fast Forward, at the ICP several years back. Her first feature, Thin, a searing and unflinching examination of a clinic for eating disorder patients, was one of my favorite docs of 2006, and so this short film, exploring Los Angeles teenagers' relationship to capital and consumption, was an expected delight. Greenfield's background as a still photographer comes out in every frame, yet she has equal skill as a storyteller. Like Julian Schnabel, she is able transition from the plastic arts to the moving one by infusing sympathy for her subjects into both.

La Corona, the last film in the set — and the longest — had been nominated for an Oscar the morning before. Well done nominating committee, whoever you are in your secret locked room; the film was a sheer joy. Following a beauty pageant within a Colombian women’s’ prison, the film’s form echoed the content — hope in a dreary place. Rooting for the beautiful women "CELLBLOCK 5, NO CELLBLOCK 3!" one forgets about the confines of their environment and becomes caught up in a contest so full of brightness. Fast-paced with just the right amount of flashiness (and an infectious soundtrack to boot) the editing was signature HBO (which, in this case, worked). And it pulled off a feat of either great skill or manipulation (or both). It's one thing to expose the humanity and complexity of a former contract killer; it's another to get audiences to route for her in a ballroom gown competition, just twenty minutes after her only slightly regretful tales of murder.

The next afternoon, I caught Be Like Others (pictured), a documentary soaked in pain. Director Tanaz Eshaghia explores the actuality behind Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s provocative and ridiculous statement that his country does not have homosexuals. Well, if all of the citizens, as those explored in this fine film, follow the stringent Islamic law of the country, he will soon be right. Though homosexuality is punishable by death, the country’s solution for those who desire partners of the same sex is, to put it clinically, gender reassignment surgery. Eshagia follows a few of these unfortunate souls as they go through the drawn out process of altering their genders — from pre-surgical ostracization from society to rigorous psychological screenings through incredibly painful surgery. Along with following stories, the director’s incisive eye captures rigorous debates between transsexuals, clerics, psychologists, and families, as they flesh out the intricacies and ironies of this cruel law.

Finally, a note about the Sundance Awards. Though to me, the fact that audiences loved The Wackness above all the other stellar films was its own real-life wackness, the other choices for prizes were top notch. Daniel Robin's short My Olympic Summer was one of two films to win the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short, and deservedly so. By any account it is a ballsy, intellectually crafted filmemoir that depends largely on the skillful editing. Other nonfiction choices, beautifully crafted with staged scenes and graphic elements serving a larger truth, also won big prizes, including Nanette Burnstein's American Teen, James Marsh’s Man on Wire, and Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Trouble the Waters.