Sundance '04 Heats Up

Movie buffs, get ready.

Another snowy mix of indie fare and Tinseltown glamour is on its way, as the 2004 Sundance Film Festival kicks off on Thursday.

America's premiere showcase for independent films, Sundance is ramping up with a full slate of films and events over the next 10 days that will transform the normally sleepy ski town of Park City, Utah, into the Cannes of the West.

"I know that occupancy is going to be really, really high...higher than usual," said Hilary Reiter of the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. "We've been getting so many calls looking for last-minute bookings, and there basically aren't any."

And as in the last several years, there'll be no shortage of celeb power to go along with the packed crowds, movie-watching, late-night partying and wheeling and dealing that the festival has become known for.

Given that last year's Sundance jury winners, American Splendor and Capturing the Friedmans, won major critical and commercial success, the specialty divisions of many a Hollywood studio are once again descending on the fest to find the latest jewels.

And there should be plenty of them.

Already generating buzz at this year's shindig are a number of films featuring Hollywood stars, most notably Maria and Bruce (Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick), Garden State (the debut feature from Scrubs star Zach Braff), Iron Jawed Angels (starring Hilary Swank and Frances O'Connor), November (with Courteney Cox and James LeGros) and The Woodsman (a pedophile drama headlining Kevin Bacon and Benjamin Bratt).

Nicole Kidman is expected to be on hand for a showing of her latest film, Lars Von Trier's Dogville. And in a first, festival father Robert Redford appears on the Sundance slate as a kidnapped businessman opposite Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe in The Clearing.

Ashton Kutcher will also attend the festival for the premiere of The Butterfly Effect, a sci-fi drama which he stars in and executive produces.

"I've never been to Sundance before," Kutcher told the New York Daily News. "I always told myself I'm not going to go till I have a movie there. I didn't want to be there and be the guy hanging out."

Now, he's looking forward to being "a part of a really cool thing."

But dude, with all these celebrities, where's the indies?

Staying true to its roots, this year's schmoozefest will also screen works from relative unknowns: the quirky comedy Napoleon Dynamite from Jared Hess; One Point O, a thriller about corporate advertising (starring Jeremy Sisto, Deborah Kara Unger and Lance Henriksen); Brother to Brother, a drama about the Harlem Renaissance; and Maria Full of Grace, a drama from first-timer Joshua Marston that follows a young Columbian girl trying to flee to America.

There are several movies vying for attention on the documentary side: A Place of My Own, a doc about a black-oriented resort on Martha's Vineyard; Deadline, tracing the events leading up to former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuting the sentences of death-row prisoners; Farmingville is about the attempted murder of two Mexican day laborers in Farmingville, New York; Imelda is described as a "beyond the shoes" depiction of the former first lady of the Philippines; and In the Realm of the Unreal is a documentary on the life of janitor turned visionary artist Henry Darger. Festivalgoers will also rock out to DiG!, a doc on the relationship between indie rock bands the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The festivities get underway tomorrow night with the opening-night screening of Riding Giants, Dogtown and Z-Boys director Stacy Peralta's new documentary about surf culture.

One of the other big premieres will be Italian maestro Bernardo Bertolucci's latest cinematic feast, The Dreamers, a sexually provocative tale about a young American that's set against the Paris riots of 1968. The film has naturally caused a stir Stateside for its frank depiction of male nudity, prompting Bertolucci to remark that he expected the film to be censored (Americans love violence, not sex). But lucky for him, Fox Searchlight just announced a few days ago that it plans to release the movie uncut in America and garner a rare NC-17 rating, considered a death knell commercially.

Several notable African-American filmmakers will be in attendance with their work, including Vondie Curtis Hall, whose Redemption tells the true tale of a gang member's reformation. Mario Van Peebles (he of Posse and TV's Sonny Spoon) will screen Baadasssss! It's half documentary/half homage to his famous father Melvin's 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

Of course, what's Sundance these days without music. Among the artists slated to perform in Park City over the next 10 days are Macy Gray, Nelly and Jason Mraz.

Overall, this year's festival will screen more than 255 films, out of 5,874 submitted. Attendance is also expected to reach new heights and surpass last year's record mark of 40,000 while generating more than $45 million in revenue for the town.