12 Canadian films to screen at Sundance

A short by Vancouver director Julia Kwan and the NFB animated movie Madame Tutli-Putli are among the Canadian films added to the schedule for the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Canada has six short films at Sundance and six feature-length films, including three documentaries already announced.

Sundance, one of the U.S.'s most important festivals of independent film, is scheduled for Jan. 17-27 in Park City, Utah.

Kwan, whose Eve and the Fire Horse feature won a special jury award at Sundance in 2006, is bringing Smile, a short film about a family preparing to sit for a portrait at Sears.

Madame Tutli-Putli, which won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the top prize at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, is by directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.

It follows the adventures of a sad little woman surrounded by baggage and her own memories as she boardsa night train.

Other Canadian shorts to be screened at Sundance:

• The Funeral, by Sara St-Onge, a comedy about confronting mortality.
• I Have Seen the Future, by Cam Christiansen, about two tennis players threatened by hooligans.
• I Met the Walrus, by Josh Raskin, an animated memory of an interview with John Lennon.
• Nikamowin (Song), by Kevin Lee Burton, based on a Cree short story.

Documentaries Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma, The Women of Brukman and Up the Yangtze have previously been announced for the festival.

A further three films will screen in non-competitive sections:

• Otto or Up With Dead People, a German-Canadian co-production directed by Bruce LaBruce, is about a lonely gay zombie searching for love.
• The Deal, a Canada-U.S. venture directed and written by Steven Schachter, is about a Hollywood producer pulling a con job.
• Sleepwalking, a Canada-U.S. production directed by Bill Maher and starring Charlize Theron, is about a man forced to care for his abandoned niece.

Meanwhile, Slamdance, a parallel film festival started in Park City in response to the strong Hollywood contingent at Sundance, is opening with Real Time, a Canadian production by Randall Cole.

It tells the story of a compulsive gambler threatened by a hit man.

Slamdance will also screen Portage, co-directed by Sascha Drews, Ezra Krybus and Matthew Miller, about teenage girls surviving in the wilderness after their guide dies and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, a horror film by John Knautz.

Both Sundance and Slamdance run Jan. 17-27, 2008.