Slamdance Premiere Mania

Originally Published: December 17, 2004

The Slamdance Film Festival, set for January 21-28, 2005 in Park City, Utah, will present a record 23 world and U.S. independent feature premieres, which include works-in-progress.

The festival will open with Amy Sewell’s documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, a look at New York kids training for a ballroom dancing contest, and close with Michael Franti’s documentary work-in-progress, I Know I Am Not Alone, a man’s diary about his attempt to discover the truth about the U.S. war in Iraq as well as the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Other films booked for the festival include Rob Stefaniuk’s comedy Phil the Alien, Arin Crumley and Susan Buice’s Four-Eyed Monsters, Matt Kresling’s Milk Can, David Greenspan’s Mall Cop, Christoph Hochhausler’s This Very Moment and On the Outs, by Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik.

Documentaries that will screen at the festival include Jennifer Abel and Jeff Hockett’s Abel Raises Cain, Don Bernier’s In a Nutshell, Jonathan Berman’s Commune and Taggart Siegel’s The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

Slamdance 2005 will feature 11 competition narrative feature films, eight competition documentary films, six Special Screenings and seven Midnight Screenings, in addition to the nearly 80 short films playing throughout the festival.

Slamdance was started in 1995 by a group of independent filmmakers as a rival to the much larger Sundance festival, which takes place in Park City at the same time.