Final Day of Sundance: Claire Aguilar Reports

Andy Bilchlbaum and Mike Bonnano travel the world posing as representatives of Halliburton, HUD and the WTO as the Yes Men in their film at Sundance.

So many movies, so little time. Posters plaster the walls at Sundance in an attempt to attract a large crowd--the trick is to be the last one to put your poster up.

I was there for the second wave of the festival that started after Obama’s inauguration. Exhilaration was in the air along with hope and warm and fuzzy feelings that made the Sundance experience really special this year. And maybe less than the normal challenge, because “working” Sundance is fun but hard. Because of trying to shoehorn everything into a 24 hour day (midnight screenings, early morning meetings, bus trips, slogging through snow and black ice), basic human needs such as food, water and sleep are often at a minimum. Everyone is watching, promoting, developing, networking, organizing and discussing films so you tend to forget about lunch. But anyway, as a wimpy Californian it wasn’t too snowy this year and I had fewer waves of panic at the sight of black ice. The Sundance survival kit this year included cute green Nalgene water bottles and hand warmers.

Caroline Libresco from Sundance organized industry meetings with filmmakers and industry professionals where I got to meet with international filmmakers and talk about projects in development. I had great conversations with filmmakers Hubert Sauper (Darwin’s Nightmare), Havana Marking (Afghan Star), Christo Hird and Rupert Murray (End of the Line), NC Heikin (Kimjongilia), John Dower (Thrilla in Manila) and Ngawang Choephel (Tibet in Song). Thanks to Sundance for connecting industry documentary people with these filmmakers––it’s a good thing.

Since I’m at the festival mostly looking for projects in development and to talk with producers, watching films is more of a treat than a priority. But I got to see some wonderful features, such as the heart-warming Amreeka (a project in development by ITVS-funded filmmaker Cherin Dabis) and the odd and funny Brief Encounters with Hideous Men, based on the book by the late David Foster Wallace.

As for docs, I went to a screening of the premiere of The Yes Men Fix the World. The Yes Men are two guys who plan and execute hilarious hoaxes aimed at the corporate world. Andy Bilchlbaum and Mike Bonnano travel the world posing as representatives of Halliburton, HUD and the WTO. In their most famous hoax, Andy posed as a Dow Chemical spokesperson (“Jude Finisterra”). On the anniversary of the Bhopal disaster––an industrial disaster that took place at a Union Carbide, a chemical plant in the city of Bhopal, India––Andy promises that Dow will dissolve their company Union Carbide. With the 12 billion dollars from the sale, they’ll clean up the site and provide medical care for the thousands of victims of the Bhopal chemical spill. The news reaches millions of viewers before the BBC discovers it was all a hoax and the Yes Men are exposed. Dow suffered a great plunge in their stock and felt an enormous backlash from the stunt. The film is filled with other pranks but also has fun sequences of the Yes Men in their power suits strategizing in a barn/office, lovely shots of them synchronized swimming and creating and crafting their props. The young and energetic audience gave the Yes Men a standing ovation after the film, relishing their latest “hoax of hope,” a fake edition of The New York Times (dated July 4, 2009) with the headline “War in Iraq Ends.” A total of 1.2 million copies of the fake paper were distributed, including at the screening, where we read about “Maximum Wage Law Passes Congress” and “All Public Universities To Be Free.” A fitting sign that the Yes Men are the social issue tricksters in the Era of Obama.

-Claire Aguilar, ITVS vice president of Programming

Tags: film festival, independent film, Sundance