Audiences for independent film have long yearned for more than the deliriously happy endings of mainstream flicks where boy gets doe-eyed girl against an orange pink sun. We wanted something heavier and grittier, something that might pierce the illusion of bubble times, and expose the underbelly of opulence. We wanted...

Selected from over 2,000 submissions, this year's American fiction films not only gauge the vitality of independent filmmaking in the U.S., but also act as a barometer for our national mindset. In current times of civil unrest, economic injury, and political failure, we depend on love -- in all its...

Released in U.S. theaters last week, Circumstance, by Iranian-American writer and director Maryam Keshavarz, tells a fictional story about a liberal, upper-class family whose love and affection are gradually drowned under the weight of repressive forces that swell their home with sorrow. As the apotheosis of the Iranian diasporic imagination,the...

Departing notably from the feel-good or angst-ridden teen flicks characteristic of the American indie arena, the teens in 2011 take accountability for themselves, learning how to be outsiders and make a world of their own on the margins of society.

What better opening night film for Sundance 2011 than...

The energy resounding through Sundance this year was undeniable. 2011 has already proved itself a landmark year not only for record-breaking film sales at the festival, but also for the arrival of a new crop of American filmmakers. With a median age of 32 years old, the films made by...

Before the doors even opened, high priestess queens were traipsing through the lobby of the Kitchen in full regalia. The show had not started, but they were already on - shaving thighs on stage, spiraling leg lifts, blowing kisses doused in glitter....

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival wraps up this evening with the awards ceremony (check out the list prize winners). Throngs of filmmakers, actors, distributors, producers, film programmers, artists, musicians, and entourage will soon leave Park City with their hearts full of warmth, and their heads stuffed with the...

There's warmth to the 2010 edition of the Sundance Film Festival - a heat not only in our pockets (thanks to YouTube's swag hand-warmers) but coming from a sweaty, yet poised, excitement unexpected at a thirty plus year old festival. Perhaps it's radiating off the broke filmmakers so thankful just...