"We tell ourselves stories in order to live," writes Joan Didion at the beginning of her groundbreaking essay The White Album. "We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."

Two movies recently drove us back to that text, to the idea that storytelling is so vital a pursuit that it's what allows us, as individuals and as a society, to keep it all together. Both movies, "" and "," are about storytellers. They are about New Yorkers, which is where the movies were shot. They both go on the market for distribution during the storied first weekend of the Sundance Film Festival.

Two of our movies were made in Los Angeles by people who have done a tremendous amount with limited resources. Driven by terrific actors giving all they've got, both "" and "" depart from typical Sundance fare by using Hollywood-style stunts and even special effects to tell stories of a Superhero and of a disaster of unthinkable proportions.

Three of our movies are, at least peripherally, about boundaries. One, "," is a nonfiction portrait of the American photographer Sally Mann, who once drew fire for making the private public. "" is a horror movie from Lionsgate about a bunch of tough women who unknowingly invade the domain of an undiscovered species. "" is a comedy about Christianity, sexuality and Original Sin which some will surely say "crosses the line." These may be the same folks, by the way, who objected to Sally Mann's early work.

It will be interesting to see what kind of narrative line journalists will impose on the state of the independent film market, which has undergone seismic personnel changes in the last year. At Toronto, some wondered about the death of the handshake deal when two companies claimed to have acquired the same movie, Jason Reitman's debut feature "Thank You For Smoking." The victor, Fox Searchlight, is looking after the film's US premiere at Sundance, while JW+A is pleased to represent Reitman himself. Having presented several shorts at Sundance, we imagine Reitman's perspective on the Festival, and on the marketplace, may be of great value to your listeners, readers and viewers as we head into the derby.

Films are listed here in order of their first screening; we have not included screenings in Salt Lake or Ogden. We would very much like to book interviews well ahead of time, and for this reason we are open after Christmas, starting Tues., Dec. 27. Though we work as a team, please make the first call about any given film to the person here listed as its main contact.

PLEASE NOTE: We plan to host TV and perhaps other interview press with talent from "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints," "The Night Listener," "What Remains" and "Special" on Sunday, January 22nd at the Claim Jumper on Main Street, this year known as the Premiere Lounge, from noon-4pm. Please save that date and time.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Until Wednesday, January 18th, please call us at our New York office, 212-595-6161.

Starting mid-day on the 18th we can be reached
through our Park City office:

Room 113
Park City Marriott
1895 Sidewinder Drive
Park City, UT 84060
Telephone:     435-649-2900
 Cell phones:
Jeremy Walker:
Christine Richardson:  
Jessica Grant:
Adam Walker:
Steven Cooper:
Martha Carrozza:
 917-597-7286
917-547-6876
917-887-5198
646-298-4135
917-364-0543
917-921-9121



With best regards,

Jeremy Walker      Christine Richardson      Jessica Grant      Steven Cooper      Adam Walker




A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS

Dramatic Competition

 This big screen adaptation of Dito Montiel's 2003 memoir of the same title, directed by Montiel from his own screenplay, is sure to leave Sundance hailed as one of the great New York movies. Every actor in its sprawling ensemble, from Robert Downey Jr. (playing the present-day Montiel) to Chazz Palminteri (Dito's father) to Rosario Dawson to Eric Roberts, gets with this movie to fulfill the promise of their early work. But it is Shia LaBeouf who will come away from Sundance a star once audiences see him go off in the subway, hang out with his friends and fall in love during one hot Queens summer, then draw the wrath of a street gang and hold his own opposite Palminteri as Dito decides to leave his home behind. As the filmmakers play with the ideas and expectations of time and memory, friendship and loyalty, family and responsibility, A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS becomes a classic, haunting and powerful coming-of-age story.

Primary contact:
Jessica Grant,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Friday, Jan. 20th

 11:30am

 Racquet Club, Park City
Friday, Jan. 20th

 6 and 8:30pm

 Sundance Resort
Saturday, Jan. 21st

 Noon

 Eccles, Park City
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 9:00am

 Yarrow 1 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 8:30pm

 Racquet Club, Park City
Friday, Jan. 27th

 11:30pm

 11:30pm

Talent Available:

Writer-director Dito Montiel will be at the Festival for the duration. Actors Chazz Palminteri, Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey, Jr. and perhaps others to be available Friday, January 20th through Sunday, January 23rd.




THE NIGHT LISTENER

Premiere

 For his second feature, writer-director Patrick Stettner tackles Armistead Maupin's most haunting page-turner, in which popular public radio storyteller Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) develops an intense phone relationship with a young listener named Pete (Rory Culkin) and his mother (Toni Collette) just as his own domestic life is undergoing drastic changes. What is it about Pete that so intrigues Gabe? Is it Pete's harrowing, JT LeRoy-ish memoir that's about to be published? Is it because Jess (Bobby Cannavale), Gabriel's lover of eight years is moving out? Maupin himself has called THE NIGHT LISTENER "a thriller of the heart"; indeed Gabe is driven to uncharacteristic extremes to find out who Pete really is. In the hands of Stettner, who manages to exceed the promise he showed with his Sundance debut "The Business of Strangers," THE NIGHT LISTENER becomes a classical mystery that deftly explores themes of identity, obsession and sublimation.

Primary contact:
Christine Richardson,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Saturday, Jan. 21st

 6:00pm

 Eccles
Sunday, Jan. 22nd

 8:30am

 Library Ctr.
Sunday, Jan. 22nd

 6 and 8:30pm

 Sundance Resort
Thursday, Jan. 26th

 11:00am

 Holiday Village 1 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)

Talent Available:

Director Patrick Stettner will be at the Festival Thurs., January 19th through Tues., January 24th; novelist Armistead Maupin available Saturday, January 20th through mid-day Monday, January 23rd. Maupin will do a book-singing at Dolly's Bookstore on Main St. Monday at 11:00am. Actors still TBD but likely the first weekend.




WHAT REMAINS
Spectrum

 In 1991, director Steven Cantor, while working an entry level job at a music cable channel, discovered some pictures by a little-known American photographer named Sally Mann, and with her blessing made a short "behind the scenes" piece as she took pictures of her children. Mann called the resulting series of portraits "Immediate Family"; the series catapulted Mann to the status of art world icon, while Cantor's film, "Blood Ties," premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Oscar. Shot over the last five years, WHAT REMAINS is their latest collaboration, a feature-length film that resonates with the same intimacy, candor and risk of Mann's work and is among a number of "portraits of the artist" screening at Sundance. In WHAT REMAINS we meet the photographer's husband, Larry, whose body is changing and is now a subject of his wife's camera; we meet their children, now grown but still willing to sit; and we get to know Mann herself as she returns to her childhood home, discovers the beauty of Southern landscapes that are haunted by the Civil War, and launches a shocking and sublime meditation on mortality.

Primary contact:
Adam Walker,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Saturday, Jan. 21st

 2:30pm

 Library Center
Sunday, Jan. 22nd

 8:30am

 Prospector
Sunday, Jan. 22nd

 5:00pm

 Yarrow 2 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)/span>
Friday, Jan. 27th

 5:30pm

 Prospector

Talent Available:

Director Steven Cantor will be at Sundance for the duration. Subject Sally Mann will be with us and available through Monday, January 23rd. Sally Mann will be doing a book signing at Dolly's Bookstore on Main Street on Monday starting at noon.




SPECIAL
Spectrum

 You have to hand it to Michael Rapaport. One of our favorite actors, he throws everything he has into SPECIAL, playing an average Joe who participates in a clinical drug trial and ends up convinced that he is a Superhero. Part of the film's genius is its premise: the drug, Specioprian Hydrochloride, "inhibits the chemical in the brain responsible for self-doubt," which sounds to us a lot like the effects of an already-proven, readily available drug called marijuana. As directed by two recent USC Film School graduates, Hal Haberman & Jeremy Passmore, SPECIAL manages to pull off the next-to-impossible: a special effects driven indie with great costumes, great makeup, big stunts and big ideas that not only has you rooting for the hero, but also identifying with him.

Primary contact:
Jeremy Walker,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Friday, Jan. 20th

 5:30pm

 Library Center
Saturday, Jan. 21st

 11:30pm

 Prospector
Tuesday, Jan. 24st

 4:30pm

 Holiday 1 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 11:30am

 Holiday Village Cinemas

Talent Available:

Writer-directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore are available for the duration; actor Michael Rapaport available Friday, January 20th through Sunday, January 22nd.




RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR
Dramatic Competition
 Dirty bombs have been simultaneously detonated in Downtown, Beverly Hills, and at LAX, spreading mass panic through Los Angeles. By focusing on one couple (Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane) and driving the narrative via news radio, writer-director Chris Gorak has made what is perhaps the first indie urban crisis movie a heart-in-your-throat viewing experience. But it is Gorak's background as a production designer ("Lords of Dogtown") and art director ("Minority Report") that may be most responsible for his ability to pull it off: in this movie, dollops of ash fall like toxic snow as whole city blocks burn in the distance. A story about the life-and-death choices one couple must make in the face of chaos, RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR is also a timely rumination on how the press and federal government responds to disasters of unthinkable proportions.

Primary contact:
Jeremy Walker,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Monday, Jan. 23rd

 5:30pm

 Racquet Club
Tuesday,. Jan. 24th

 2:30pm

 Racquet Club
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 8:30am

 Racquet Club
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 5:00pm

 Yarrow 2 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)
Friday, Jan. 27th

 9:15am

 Eccles

Talent Available:

Writer-director Chris Gorak for the duration; actors Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane Monday, January 23 and Tuesday, January 24th.




THE DESCENT
Midnight

 One year after a tragic accident, six girlfriends meet in a remote part of the Appalachians for their annual caving trip. Deep below the surface of the earth, disaster strikes when a rock falls and blocks their route back to the surface. The girls soon learn that Juno, the thrill-seeking leader of the expedition, has brought them to an unexplored cave and that as a result no one knows where they are to come rescue them. The group splinters and each push on, praying for another exit. But there is something else lurking under the earth - a race of monstrous humanoid creatures that are adapted perfectly to life in the dark. As the friends realize they are now prey, they are forced to unleash their most primal instincts in an all-out war against an unspeakable horror - one that attacks without warning, again and again and again. Written and directed by Neil Marshall, THE DESCENT will be released by Lionsgate in 2006.

Primary contact:
Jessica Grant,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Monday, Jan. 23rd

 NOON

 Yarrow 2 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)
Monday, Jan. 23rd

 11:59pm

 Egyptian
Thursday, Jan. 26th

 2:30pm

 Holiday Village Cinema II
Saturday, Jan. 28th

 11:30pm

 Library Center
Sunday, Jan. 29th

 1:30pm

 Holiday Village Cinema II

Talent Available:

Director Neil Marshall and star Shauna Macdonald will be in Park City Monday, January 23rd through Wednesday, January 25th.




FORGIVING THE FRANKLINS
Spectrum

 David Schwimmer It would be easy to dismiss Jay Floyd's feature comedy FORGIVING THE FRANKLINS as a lampoon of Southern Evangelical Christianity - except for the fact that it is Jesus Christ's superior knowledge of the human condition that guides the film's narrative. And what a juicy narrative it is. The Franklins are a typical North Carolina family: Frank is a lawyer, Betty is a homemaker, and the High School-age kids, Caroline and Brian, are a cheerleader and a football star. An auto accident turns the The Franklins' world upside down: in a state somewhere between life and death Frank, Betty and Brian meet Christ who, for reasons known only to him, remove from them the burden of Original Sin. Left out of the equation is Caroline who, in the throes of adolescence and real bodily pain, must figure out why her family has suddenly and ravenously embraced their repressed sexuality. FORGIVING THE FRANKLINS will surely upset some, while adventurous and gay audiences will find characters and situations with whom they can identify. Whatever side you're on, once you see this movie you'll never look at ice cubes and apple pie the same way again.

Primary contact:
Steven Cooper,

Download Press Notes

Screenings:

Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 8:30pm

 Library Center
Wednesday, Jan. 25th

 9:30am

 Yarrow 2 (PRESS/INDUSTRY)
Thursday, Jan. 26th

 11:30pm

 Prospector
Friday, Jan. 27th

 11:30am

 Library Center

Talent Available:

Writer-director Jay Floyd will be at the Festival for the duration, with cast coming in the second half of the Festival.







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