This weekend, no less an authority than Roger Ebert declared the 1978 film "The Whole Shootin' Match," directed by the late Eagle Pennell, a movie "which had a decisive influence on American independent film."

"When Robert Redford saw it at the Park City Film Festival, it awoke him to the possibilities of low-budget indie filmmaking," Ebert wrote in his review. "He started the Sundance Institute, and soon after the Park City festival became the Sundance Film Festival. When Richard Linklater, then living in Eagle's hometown of Austin, saw it, he decided to become a filmmaker himself, and his 'Dazed and Confused' owes a lot to Pennell."

Pennell's film, newly rediscovered and restored, is touring the country. It played in New York and Austin, and is playing this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

No holiday rest for filmmakers getting their work ready for the Sundance Film Festival.

Here's a dispatch from a sound studio in Moline, Ill., where the final "sweetening" of the sound mix is taking place for "Sugar," the follow-up film by Ryan Fleck and Anna Bowen, the team that made "Half Nelson."

The movie was filmed just over the river in Davenport, Iowa.

Speaking of marketing movies at Sundance, the folks behind Steven Sebring's documentary "Patti Smith: Dream of Life" are orchestrating quite a campaign.

Smith's record label, Columbia, has announced it will release a new album of her material on iTunes on Jan. 8, which will include original songs and some covers (that version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with Steve Earle sounds promising).

The announcement notes that Sebring's movie will premiere at Sundance on Sunday, Jan. 20 - and that Smith and her band will perform two shows in Park City.

If you ever wondered about all the work that goes into getting a movie to the Sundance Film Festival - and how many people it takes to do those jobs - this item gives you a bit of insight.

It's a posting from the blog of Tom Richmond, an award-winning caricature artist who is a regular contributor to Mad Magazine. Richmond describes creating a proposed poster for a documentary playing at Sundance next month - a poster idea that was apparently rejected.

Richmond doesn't reveal the name of the documentary, but a cursory reading of the festival's film guide shows that it's probably "The Linguists," about two globe-trotting language researchers.

Much is made about how the Sundance Film Festival is a place where filmmakers hook up with distributors. But hook-ups of a more personal nature happen there too.

The "Vows" column of Sunday's New York Times discussed one such pairing, between Julia Boorstin and Couper Samuelson. She is the media and entertainment reporter for CNBC. He is a vice president for film development at 2929 Productions.

They met at a party at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Their first date was a screening of "Napoleon Dynamite." Their second date was dinner in Park City, after which he got them into a Macy Gray performance - which is when he kissed her. The rest, as they say, is history.

On page 79 of the Sundance Film Festival's film guide is an odd little item, a list of "Festival tips for being green."

Among the ideas mentioned: Look for recycling bins around festival venues, walk around Park City rather than drive, hang onto your copy of the film guide, and don't have your hotel linen changed every day.

It also points out the green-friendly goods available at the festival's store, including the Todd Oldham-designed messenger bags made from old festival banners.

Others will be getting into the eco-friendly act at Sundance. For the second year, Lexus Hybrid Living will have its Project GreenHouse lounge in Park City, promoting "eco-luxury living." And to make sure people come check it out, Lexus has singer John Legend performing at the Star Bar on Jan. 19.

Sundance has announced the 15 installation artists whose multimedia projects will inhabit the New Frontier on Main exhibit space during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Among the more intriguing entries is L.A.S.E.R. Tag, which promises to throw up lighted "defacements" of buildings around Park City during the festival. (At right is an example of their work in Rotterdam. More can be seen here, and check out this video.)

The New Frontier space is downstairs at the Main Street Mall, 333 Main, Park City.

Add another title to the 2008 Sundance Film Festival slate: "Hamlet 2," a comedy about a high-school teacher who tries to get his students enthused about theater by staging a musical sequel to Shakespeare's greatest drama.
The movie - slated for the festival's Premieres program - is directed by Andrew Fleming ("Nancy Drew," "The In-Laws") and features a cast that includes Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Shue, Amy Poehler, David Arquette and Melonie Diaz.

That brings the number of feature-film titles at Sundance to 122.

Director Quentin Tarantino will receive the 2008 Ray-Ban Visionary Award, at a Jan. 20 event at Harry O's in Park City during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the award's sponsors announced.

Tarantino's history with Sundance goes back to 1992, when his debut film "Reservoir Dogs" played in competition - losing to the now-forgotten "In the Soup." (Incidentally, both movies starred Steve Buscemi.)

Should be quite a party at Harry O's that night, including a performance by the band The Bravery.

Today is the final day to pre-register here for individual ticket sales for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Buyers will receive an e-mail notification Friday, telling them when they can purchase tickets between Jan. 8 and 11.

The X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival - one of the offshoots of Sundance week - has announced the titles that will be playing at the event, Jan. 19-23.

This year the event - which had been in the increasingly deserted confines of Park City's Main Street Mall - is moving to Salt Lake City. Screenings will be at the "X-Dance Theatre" - actually the Off Broadway Theatre, 272 S. Main.

Start planning your festival marathon now: The 2008 Sundance Film Festival film guide is available online here.

It's a whopping huge download, but better that than killing a tree to print out the thing.

"The Trials of Darryl Hunt," Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's documentary that followed the plight of a man wrongly convicted of murder, was one of the winners of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University 2008 News Awards.

The documentary debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, before airing on HBO. Earlier this year, Stern and Sundberg released their latest documentary, "The Devil Came on Horseback," about the genocide in Darfur.

St. Clair Bourne, the Harlem-born documentary filmmaker who chronicled the lives of African Americans, died Saturday after surgery to remove a brain tumor. He was 64.

Among Bourne's films (according to this biography on Bourne's web site) were documentaries about singer Paul Robeson, poet Amiri Baraka and the making of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." His film "John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk" screened in competition at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.

The online store for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival is up and running here.

Aside from the usual T-shirts and baseball caps, a few more interesting items: An iPod case, and a messenger bag made from recycled '07 festival banners.

Attention, Utah movie lovers: Today is the last day to pre-register for individual ticket sales for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Click here by 5 p.m. Mountain time to start registration. On Monday, you will be notified by e-mail when you can buy tickets in person on Jan. 5 and 6 - before the general ticket sales begin on Jan. 8.

If you live outside of Utah, click here to pre-register for individual ticket sales before Wednesday.

Add two more titles to the 2008 Sundance Film Festival slate, and they're both classics.

The titles comprise Sundance's From the Collection sidebar, which serves up great indies of the past for a new appraisal. The films are part of the Sundance Collection, an archive at UCLA.

They are Gregg Araki's 1992 surrealistic AIDS drama "The Living End," and Derek Jarman's modern-dress adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II" starring Tilda Swinton and Stephen Waddington. (The latter film dovetails with the documentary "Derek," about Jarman, that's competing in the World Cinema Documentary program.)

The Slamdance Film Festival has announced its short-film slate: 85 titles in five competitive categories and two non-competitive slates.

One noteworthy item on the schedule: A double-feature of shorts from Poland, programmed
by a festival jury at Slamdance's branch event in Krakow.

The prize in the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award is what every struggling filmmaker needs: $10,000 toward the making of the movie, and guaranteed broadcast rights on the Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Three finalists in each of four regions - Europe, Latin America, Japan and the United States - were announced Tuesday. The four winners will be announced during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival next month.

Here are the finalists:

• Europe: Janez Burger's "Circus Fantasticus" (Slovenia), Radu Jude's "The Happiest Girl In the World" (Romania) and Jasmila Zbanic's "On The Path" (Bosnian/Herzegovina).
• Latin America: Alejandro Fernandez Almendras' "Huacho" (Chile), Paz Fabrega's "Agua Fria de Mar" (Costa Rica) and Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra's "Hard Labor" (Brazil).
• United States: Braden King's "Here," Jake Mahaffy's "Free in Deed" and James Ponsoldt's "Refresh, Refresh."
• Japan: Akira Ichinose's "Lamplight and Shadows," Yukihiko Goto's "Three Cold Days and Four Warm Days" and Aiko Nagatsu's "Apoptosis."

Past winners of the NHK award include Walter Salles' "Central Station," Miranda July's "Me and You and Everyone We Know," and Sherman Alexie's script for "Smoke Signals."

There are now an estimated 5,000 film festivals every year around the world - nearly 100 a week.

Is that too many? That was one of the questions raised last week at the International Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas, as reported here by Daily Variety's Michael Jones.

At the summit, festival organizers talked about how to stand out from the crowd, how to compete with the big boys (like Sundance, Toronto and Telluride) and how to deal with the demand for sponsors, publicity, stars and premieres.

Sundance's director, Geoffry Gilmore, was among those in attendance. When the discussion turned to film festivals as a growth industry, he was skeptical. "There's no formula," he said. "A festival should be a cultural event, not a business opportunity."

A reminder to Utah residents: Pre-registration to buy individual tickets for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival is underway, through Friday at 5 p.m. MST.

Go here, and get signed up. You will get an e-mail notification next Monday, telling you the time slot when you can order your tickets Jan. 5 and 6 (that's before the national sales dates).

If you live outside of Utah, go here and get pre-registered by Dec. 19. E-mail notification is on Dec. 21, and you order your tickets Jan. 8-11.

Every year there seems to be one actress who's everywhere at Sundance.

In 1996, Lili Taylor had four titles at Sundance: "I Shot Andy Warhol," "Illtown," "Girls Town" and "Cold Fever." But the first actress to be dubbed "Miss Sundance" was Parker Posey, who came to Sundance '97 with "subUrbia," "The House of Yes," "Clockwatchers" and "Henry Fool."

Christina Ricci earned the title in 2002 with the trifecta of "Pumpkin," "Miranda" and "The Laramie Project." The following year, Patricia Clarkson was Miss Sundance for her four films: "Pieces of April," "The Station Agent," "All the Real Girls" and "The Baroness and the Pig."

So who is Miss Sundance for the 2008 festival? The winner appears to be Maria Bello (recently seen in "The Jane Austen Book Club"), who's in three films: "Towelhead," "Downloading Nancy" and "Yellow Handkerchief."

Morgan Spurlock, the renegade documentarian who grew to fame with his biting "Super Size Me," is making waves again with his new movie that's going to premiere at Sundance next month.

"Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" has the filmmaker searching high and low for the infamous terrorist, most likely filmed in the same whimsical style we've seen in "Super" and in Spurlock's wonderful documentary series on FX, "30 Days."

The question everyone has on their minds is did Spurlock (pictured in a publicity photo from his show) actually pull off what the government could not do in six years - find the architect of the 9/11 attacks for an interview. And if so, did he pull out a super-spy version of an AK-47 and blow a whole through bin Laden's head before narrowly escaping like John McClane?

According to MSNBC, Spurlock showed off about 15 minutes of his film in February, and it immediately started a bidding war that ultimately the Weinstein Co. won.

No doubt it will be a hot topic and buzz-worthy film this festival.

Hmmm... paying creative people for their work when it's on the Internet. What a novel concept!

That's what Sundance is doing for the short filmmakers whose work is available for downloading. Last year, according to this item from Daily Variety's The Circuit blog, some filmmakers whose work was in the '07 festival saw money in the "tens of thousands of dollars" - even after iTunes (from where the films were downloaded) and Sundance took their fees.

This year, selected shorts will be available for download at the iTunes Music Store, through Microsoft's XBox Live, and Netflix' member site. Some also will be streamed on Sundance's web site.

Could Sundance serve as a model for the Writers' Guild, currently striking against big-media conglomerates over just this issue? As Variety's Michael Jones puts it, "If the Sundance Film Festival can figure out how to pay for internet downloads, why not the AMPTP?"

Out of 5,107 submissions, Sundance organizers have selected 83 short films for the festival.

One, "Welcome," stars Winona Ryder and is directed by Kirsten Dunst. Another, "Green Porno," is a documentary on insect sex directed by Isabella Rossellini.

The shorts will be screened at Sundance, and some will be available for streaming at the festival's web site. A selection also will be available for download on the iTunes Music Store, through XBox Live, and on the Netflix member site.

The Slamdance Film Festival, Sundance's upstart kid brother, has announced the 30 feature films that will screen Jan. 17-25 at Park City's Treasure Mountain Inn.

The opening-night film is "Real Time," about a hitman (Randy Quaid) who gives his mark, a compulsive gambler (Jay Baruchel, from "Knocked Up"), one hour to live. (Oddly enough, Sundance's opening-night film, "In Bruges," is another comedy-drama about hitmen.)

The rest of the list is here.

Delta Airlines (a Sundance sponsor) has announced its second annual Fly-In Movies contest, in which voters online and on Delta flights can vote for one of five original short films.

The five finalist filmmakers get a trip to Park City for the festival. The winner, determined by votes on delta.com and the inflight Delta on Demand, gets $10,000 and a pair of round-trip tickets on Delta.

The five films are:

• "Slow" by Kurt Kuenne
• "Tales of a Mere Existence: Conversation" by Levni Yilmaz
• "Ctrl Z" by Robert Kirbyson
• "T'is the Season" by Bob Giovanelli
• "Morning Fall" by Edward McGinty

Go here to see them and vote.

Which of Sundance '07's titles are looking promising for this year's Oscar race?

The most promising title seems to be "The Savages," Tamara Jenkins' dark comedy about two siblings (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) dealing with their cantankerous dad (Philip Bosco). The movie opened this weekend in New York and L.A. to good box office (according to this IndieWire report), and is slated to open in Utah sometime in January.

Linney is a strong contender for a Best Actress nomination. Hoffman is a long-shot for Best Actor, but if he gets it, it will more likely be for his performance in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." (What's most likely is a supporting-actor nod for "Charlie Wilson's War.") Jenkins could also nab one of the slots for Original Screenplay - a reflection not just of Jenkins' talent but, alas, on the dearth of original screenplays out there.

Another strong Best Actress contender is Julie Christie, for her role as an Alzheimer's victim in Sarah Polley's "Away From Her" - which was the Salt Lake Gala premiere film at Sundance '07.

Miramax bought "Grace Is Gone" (opening Jan. 11 in Utah) at Sundance '07, and part of the marketing strategy is an Oscar campaign for John Cusack. Cusack shares room on the long-shot Best Actor list with Frank Langella, for his portrayal of an aging author in "Starting Out in the Evening."

Then there's everyone's sentimental favorite, the Irish musical drama "Once." If nothing else, a Best Song nomination for "Falling Slowly" would be a treat - and let Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova wow the Kodak Theatre audience with their plaintive voices.

When Sundance announced the 121 films on its festival slate, entertainment writers all over the country - and beyond - mobilized to find what we in the newspaper biz call "the local angle."

Some examples:

• The Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times wrote about the drama "Anywhere, U.S.A.," which was filmed in Asheville, and "Pretty Bird," the directorial debut of former Asheville resident Paul Schneider.
• The Times-Union of Warsaw, Ind., highlighted Nanette Burstein's documentary "American Teen," which follows the lives of students at Warsaw Community High School.
• The website WinnipegFirst.ca sings the praises of Kari Latimer, a musician from that Canadian city, for collaborating on the score of "Frozen River."
• The Idaho Statesman in Boise also wrote about "Frozen River," because Idaho filmmaker Heather Rae ("Trudell") is one of its producers.
• The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville got in a mention of "The Year of Getting to Know Us," a comedy starring Jimmy Fallon that was filmed in Jacksonville.
• The Washington Post's business desk blogged about Ted Leonsis, owner of the NHL's Washington Capitals and a producer of the documentary "Kicking It," about players competing in the Homeless World Cup. (Leonsis' first film venture was "Nanking," which premiered at Sundance '07 and is on the Oscar short-list.)
• The Daily Star of Lebanon compiled a story about four Middle Eastern films on the Sundance slate: "Slingshot Hip-Hop," "Captain Abu Raed," "Under the Bombs" and "Recycle."
• And The New York Sun notes in this story that America's biggest small-town - New York - has ties to 17 films in competition at Sundance.