LOS ANGELES — "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe has landed his first entry in the Sundance Film Festival. Radcliffe plays poet Allen Ginsber...

LOS ANGELES — The Sundance Film Festival has an apparent record lineup of female directors competing for its top honor this January. Half the e...

As abstracted in Ben Lewin's film, The Sessions, Mark Obrien's tale is one of of a first-time sexual adventurer, launching himself into a world of intimacy he previously thought would be denied to him.

Set in California's forgotten Salton Sea, writer-director Elgin James' debut follows 15 year-old Lily (Juno Temple) and her best friend Alison (Kay Panabaker) as they attempt to flee their impoverished community and build a nest in Los Angeles with a group of runaway squatters.

I knew what the odds were when we started (though, of course, I was convinced I could beat them). I'd heard the horror stories from filmmakers I'd interviewed over the years: unscrupulous and inept producers, financiers and film companies, and so forth.

It used to be that a movie that celebrated the use of marijuana was considered shocking, scandalous, unacceptable and inappropriate. To some people, it probably still is.

French filmmakers and funders defend auteur-driven works, finance documentaries that ask tough questions, and fight back against a mainstreaming of factual filmmaking, is one of the strong suits of Sunnyside.

The Beasts of the Southern Wild is easily one of the best films of 2012. It is the kind of intimate experience that ennobles independent film-making and it is a genuine piece of must-see cinema.