By COLEEN DOWNE
Individual event tickets for the internationally recognized 1996 Sundance Film Festival go on sale today for Utah residents.
The festival is set to begin Jan. 18 and run through Jan. 28 in Park City. Tickets may be purchased in Salt Lake City at the Crossroads Plaza, in Park City at the Gateway Building and in the General Store at Sundance.
This year there are 18 dramatic features and 16 documentaries competing in the dramatic and documentary competitions. According to the Competition Selection Advisory Board and the Sundance programming staff, “these films represent the scope and diversity of the American film community.”
“The Sundance Film Festival continues in its formative role in giving visibility and prominence to American independent cinema in all its diversity and scope. We are lucky to be able to showcase the broadest range of cinema — dramatic and documentary films — that is artistically challenging and/or polit ically motivated,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, director of programming for the Sundance Film Festival.
The Sundance Film Festival introduces the American Spectrum program this year. The 20 films in this program are not competing in the independent competition but are showcased to give the “emerging filmmakers the recognition they deserve,” according to the Sundance Film Festival.
To compete in the Independent Feature Film Competition, dramatic and documentary feature films must be “independently produced with at least 51 percent U.S. financing,” said Saundra Saperstein of the Sundance Institute. Premieres and panel discussions will also be a part of the film festival.
In 1981, Robert Redford founded the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit arts organization, which sponsors the Sundance Film Festival. The Institute is “dedicated to the support and development of emerging screenwriters and directors of vision, and to the national and international exhibition of new American independent cinema. The Institute offers essential artistic and professional resources to over three hundred artists every year,” according to the Sundance Institute.
Student discounts and group rate tickets are available. For more information call (801) 322-1700
