2010 Sundance Film Festival

In a world of shrinking theatrical releases, today’s filmmakers are increasingly hitting the road themselves, presenting their work in myriad venues across the country. What emerges is a more direct connection between filmmaker and audience and a dynamic grassroots interaction among artist, the work, and the public. What are the artistic benefits of these “event” screenings? What are the new revenue and marketing opportunities? Join us for a whirlwind tour of the new “live” cinema. Moderated by Jose Munoz, NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Panelists: Sam Green (filmmaker, Utopia in Four Movements); Tim Rutili (filmmaker, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers); Kalup Linzy (filmmaker, Sweet, Sampled, and LeftOva); Daniel Karslake (filmmaker, For the Bible Tells Me So); Nao Bustamante (filmmaker, Silver & Gold); and Lisa Smithline (copresident, Cultural Front Productions).

Throughout human history, people have had giddy dreams and fantastic notions about what the future would bring. Today the future has become more of a threat than a promise—a knot of intractable problems looming menacingly on the horizon. With a powerful sense of poetry, Utopia in Four Movements uses the collective experience of cinema to explore the battered state of the utopian impulse at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In this “live documentary,” filmmaker Sam Green cues images and narrates in person while musician Dave Cerf performs the soundtrack. From the establishment of a man-made language designed to end war and cultural conflict and the undying optimism of an American exile in Cuba, to the current economic boom in China and the desire to give the remains in mass graves a dignified burial, Green and Cerf sift through the history of the utopian impulse with audiences and search for insights about the way to build a vision of the future based on humankind’s noblest impulses. Live music by Dennis Cronin, T. Griffin, and Catherine McCrae Film Contact Sam Green