PARK CITY—The snow might be coming down hard here, but there's enough star wattage and hype to keep things sizzling at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

On Saturday, the second full day of the annual indie film orgy, Hollywood players like Anthony Hopkins and Kevin Bacon mingled with the masses to promote various (and not always film-related) projects along Main Street. Meanwhile, festgoers navigated the throng of hanger-on corporate sponsor booths, hawking everything from energy drinks to cell phones, as they angled to get into the best screenings, parties, concerts and gift lounges in town.

Exhibit A: Dustin "Screech" Diamond.

"I'm not in a film out here," he said. "Gary Coleman is here with a film crew doing the celebrity gift thing, trying to get swag and stuff. And the reason I'm out here is I said I'm going to outgift him, so I brought a film crew down and we're going to get more swag and better swag than he gets. And we're documenting it. And he's not happy about it."

Indeed, although the slope-side film gathering hatched by Robert Redford over 20 years ago continues to evolve as a filmmaking mecca, it can be easy to overlook the quality slate of movies amid the hype merchants, dizzying flashbulbs and red carpet glitz, all fairly recent additions.

"It used to be I didn't have to do [the red carpet]," Steve Buscemi told E! Online at the Premiere magazine-sponsored bash for his latest film, Delirious, a drama screening out of competition that costars Gina Gershon and Michael Pitt and was helmed by Tom DeCillo (Living in Oblivion). "There's a lot more people here, more press, more paparazzi."

As it happens, Buscemi plays a paparazzo in the movie, a sharp satire that finds his character party-crashing, scoring goodie bags and snapping Hollywood's elite, one of whom, a pretty pop princess (Gershon), seduces his young protégé. The movie plays not unlike a day in the life of a Sundance attendee; however, the erstwhile Mr. Pink was quick to note that it's the movies that still matter here, particularly those made by newcomers.

"The films over the years have been consistent in that they always have the best films with the most interesting topics, and if you don't see them here, sometimes you just won't see them anywhere else," Buscemi said. "This is a really important festival."

Buscemi isn't just here as an actor but also as director. His film, Interview, in which he stars opposite Sienna Miller, centers on a political journalist who gets sidetracked by his editor and assigned to interview the country's hottest up-and-coming starlet. The film is screening in Sundance's non-competitive Spectrum program, which showcases creatively daring dramatic and documentary fare.

One film that is competing for the fest's top dramatic prize is Snow Angels, from fest veteran David Gordon Green, acclaimed helmer of indie favorite George Washington. Snow Angels follows a born-again, alcoholic Christian (Sam Rockwell) who lives with his parents and is trying to get back together with his wife (Kate Beckinsale).
 
Green told E! Online that despite the influx of studio financing and top-flight celebrities further blurring the line between what was once a traditional indie picture and a Hollywood production, what made something "independent" is in the filmmaking process.
 
"I've got a real collaborative sense of priorities in the way I make movies. I get a gang of people that really enjoy working together and hanging out that have a similar sensibility in movies," he said. "To me, it's less important where the money comes from. It's more the creative freedom that that money allows so you try to keep it independent."

Bill Strauss, of indie outfit Circle of Confusion, coproduced the in-competition drama Weapons. The follow-up to writer-director Adam Bhala Lough's Bomb the System, the film stars Nick Cannon, Paul Dano, Mark Webber and Arlis Howard and is angling to become the next Sundance award winner to make it big, à la recent breakouts Little Miss Sunshine and Hustle & Flow. The film focuses on a series of related killings in a small working-class town. As the story unfolds in five parts, the audience must piece together how the killings transpired.
 
"I think we had tried the traditional mini-majors for financing, and it really came about because of a lunch I had with [coproducers] Rob Fried and Dan Keston," said Strauss. "This is a true independent film. It was financed by private equity, made outside the Hollywood system by producers really well acquainted with the Hollywood system, so I would say that this is a classic indie in the way it came together."

He continued: "It's also really a movie that a lot of teenagers will relate to...and taps into today's youth culture in a way that's really groundbreaking."

Competing against Weapons and Snow Angels is the much talked about Hounddog, from writer-director Deborah Kampmeier. A southern gothic tale about a young girl with an abusive father who finds the strength to overcome debilitating obstacles, the film has not only been generating buzz for star Dakota Fanning's mesmerizing performance, but also major-league controversy for a scene in which the 12-year-old's character is raped.
 
While the film has yet to be screened, several conservative commentators, including Fox News' Sean Hannity, have criticized the film for putting Fanning through such a traumatic situation; there's also word that other film festivals, including Santa Barbara's, has declined to program Hounddog given the boundary-pushing content and the threat of protests.

However, someone intimately involved in the film's production told E! Online that the controversial rape scene is done as tastefully as possible and only shows Fanning's face; the act itself is committed by a fellow 12-year-old, not some adult pedophile, which has been the prevailing assumption among critics who have lashed out at the film, sight unseen.

There are also some early standouts on the doc side. Among the most anticipated is Julien Temple's Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, which offers an in-depth portrait of the Clash's late frontman from wannabe rock star to anti-establishment icon. Another hot ticket is David Sington's In the Shadow of the Moon, which uses some stunning original NASA film footage to chronicle the space agency's Apollo moon missions from the astronauts' points of view.

There's also Brett Morgan's Chicago 10, which had its world premiere as Sundance's opening-night film. The innovative documentary combines original animation and archival footage to tell the story of the infamous conspiracy trial stemming from the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

As any festival regular will tell you, there's so much to see and so little time. But while movies are the name of the game here, Sundance has plenty of extracurricular activities. Just ask veteran Sam Rockwell.

"This is my fourth time. I did my first film about 10 years ago and it's been a long trek. Back then, I did Box of Moonlight and a little film called Arresting Gina. But the festival hasn't changed much," he quipped. "I'm still drunk."