Surfing film kicks off Sundance


Riding Giants was directed by Stacy Peralta, who attended the screening
A documentary feature about surfing has opened Robert Redford's Sundance 2004 Festival in Park City, Utah.
Redford, founder of the independent film festival, was among those at the screening of Riding Giants, from director Stacy Peralta.

"We're here because we love what we do, and it's the thrill of doing what we do that gives us such pleasure," he said.

The festival, which runs until 25 January, is showing 255 films including Redford's new thriller The Clearing.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the festival.

It is featuring a raft of other long-awaited films. Friends actress Courteney Cox-Arquette stars in November as a photographer who struggles to cope after her boyfriend is shot dead.

Other entries include We Don't Live Here Anymore, starring Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern in the story of a man's affair with his best friend's wife.

Movie Studios Purchase Films at Sundance

By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

PARK CITY, Utah - Distributors pulled out their checkbooks at the Sundance Film Festival (news - web sites), whose first weekend closed with deals on some of the event's hot movies.



Miramax and Fox Searchlight teamed to buy "Garden State," a romantic comedy that is one of 16 films in Sundance's dramatic competition.


Fox Searchlight bought a second dramatic-competition entry, the teen-geek tale "Napoleon Dynamite," while Lions Gate bought the ocean thriller "Open Water," based on a true story about married scuba divers mistakenly left behind in shark-infested waters by a careless boat crew.


Sony Pictures Classics picked up the festival's opening-night film, the surfing documentary "Riding Giants." Focus Features bought "The Motorcycle Diaries," chronicling Che Guevara's biker odyssey through South America with a friend in the early 1950s.


The Miramax and Fox Searchlight partnership is unusual, since distributors scouting film festivals generally go it alone when buying a movie. Studios often team up to minimize their risk by co-financing big-budget films, and the Miramax-Fox Searchlight deal was the indie equivalent.


20th Century Fox, the parent company of Fox Searchlight, and Miramax recently joined forces on "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."


"We had worked with Fox at the bigger studio level, so it made sense to get involved at the independent level," said Miramax spokesman Paul Pflug.


"Garden State" was written and directed by Zach Braff (news) of TV's "Scrubs." Braff also stars as a man who returns home for his mother's funeral and breaks free of a lifetime of medication-induced passivity, striking up a relationship with a quirky young woman (Natalie Portman (news)). The film co-stars Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm (news).


"Napoleon Dynamite," an early crowd-pleaser at the festival which runs through Sunday, was directed by Jared Hess and follows the trials and triumphs of a high-school dork (Jon Heder) with bushy red hair.


"Open Water" stars Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis and was written and directed by Chris Kentis.


Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films, called "Open Water" a blend of "`Blair Witch' meets `Jaws.'"


Lions Gate plans to put the movie into wide release this summer.

while Lions Gate bought the ocean thriller "Open Water," based on a true story about married scuba divers mistakenly left behind in shark-infested waters by a careless boat crew.

Originally posted by joeydaninja
I'd like to watch The Motorcycle Diaries

so I can know the story of Che without having to read about it ;D

Originally posted by honking
any idea how much those films are being bought for? I wish I was there

Originally posted by Frank TJ Mackey
I believe The Sundance Awards are on IFC at 9 p.m eastern
on Saturday, Jan. 25.

In the world cinema sections, Canada stole the show.
The dramatic prize went to "Seducing Doctor Lewis," director Jean-Francois Pouliot's story of a Montreal doctor who is asked to relocate to a dreary fishing village to inadvertently save its economy. Ken Scott penned the "Doctor" screenplay, and Roger Frappier and Luc Vandal produced.