The movie universe's center of gravity shifts east for a few days as roughly 40,0000 film fans descend on Park City, Utah, for an ice-cold bath of cutting-edge cinema at the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals.
Among the highlights: Solatrium. The 20-minute sci-fi short follows an outer-space clone (played by Arielle Nicole Cartee, pictured) who becomes overly fond of her hallucinogenic drug diet. In the best DIY tradition, director Chris Bower lined his own apartment with discarded styrofoam packing materials to create the setting for this sleek study in deep-space isolation.
Solatrium debuts Saturday at Slamdance, which runs Thursday through Jan. 28. The resort town's main event, the Sundance Film Festival, also begins Thursday and goes through Jan. 31.
Other Park City picks:
- Pumzi: This sci-fi short by Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu dives into a bleak future world in which precious water has sparked wars (Friday at Sundance). Look for Wired.com's interview with the filmmaker Friday.
- The Scenesters: A DIY film about DIY filmmakers, Scenesters follows a low-budget serial killer movie in Los Angeles that goes horribly awry when a real maniac starts stalking the set. The picture comes from Vacationeer Productions, which hit it big in 2006 with YouTube series The Googling (Friday, Slamdance).
- Howl: James Franco leaves his mopey Spider-Man character Harry Osborn in the dust to play Allen Ginsberg in this bio-pic, which brings the epic 1956 poem to life with animated segments based on Eric Drooker's surreal illustrations (Thursday, Sundance).
- William Burroughs: A Man Within: The Naked Lunch author gets his close-up in this documentary. Drilling into the inventor of "cut-up" text, A Man Within includes interviews with David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Iggy Pop and Laurie Anderson (Friday, Slamdance).
- The Last Lovecraft: The Relic of Cthulhu: Life changes for an ordinary drone when an ancient relic indicates that he is the sole surviving descendant of psychological horror maestro H.P. Lovecraft (Sunday, Slamdance).
- Douchebag: Offbeat romantic comedy from Drake Doremus follows up last year's equally fringe-y Spoon (Friday, Sundance).
In addition to the Park City screenings, 12 short films can be viewed at the Sundance YouTube Screening Room.
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