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Sundance wrapup
Kelly Williams of the Austin Film Festival reports on the Sunday events at Sundance:
Even though the festival had been going on since Thursday, this was really my first day here. It turned into a bit of a “war torn” day of film screenings. It started with partially Texas-shot film “The Dry Land.” As writer-director Ryan Williams is a former programmer at Austin Film Festival, it turned into a bit of a reunion with several current and past AFF staffers coming out to support the first screening.
Now that I have laid out my obvious bias, I will say that Williams has made an amazing and moving film about post-traumatic stress disorder. With a great cast including America Ferrera and Melissa Leo, he pulls great performances for a tight, well written script. The standout, however, is lead actor Ryan O’Nan as the soldier returning to El Paso to his wife and friends, but not being able to remember the incident that sent him home.
On the other side of town, I caught a screening of “Snow and Ashes” at Slamdance. It’s the story of a war journalist named Blaise, caught up in an unnamed war happening in Eastern Europe with his friend and photographer, David. After running from soldiers, he wakes up in his home town of Quebec - without David. Like O’Nan’s character in “The Dry Land,” Blaise is struggling to remember the tragic events of war. “Snow and Ashes” is written and directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud, and like Williams, he is an extremely talented and clearly passionate filmmaker.
After that I met up with friends from the Marfa Film Festival and headed to the party for “The Dry Land.” Like most Sundance parties, this one was in a large warehouse space. All the cast that attended the screening were at the party, including Wilmer Valderrama and June Diane Raphael, but the highlight was a surprise performance by Lyle Lovett (another bias as he happens to be an AFF board member) who contributed music for the film. After his set, the party closed out with the forming of an odd dance circle featuring the smooth dance moves of cast member Jason Ritter.
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