9. O’er the Land

Director Deborah Stratman (who, in the interest of full disclosure, was a professor of mine at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) last had work at Sundance in 2003, when she was cinematographer of Thom Anderson’s Los Angeles Plays Itself. O’er The Land, an hour-long documentary in the Frontier section, is described as a “meditation on freedom and technological approaches to manifest destiny”, encompassing gun shows, cheerleaders, and historical re-enactments. Knowing a bit of Stratman’s work, chances are it’ll be more narratively experimental than a personality-fronted doc, but not inacessibly so.

10. World’s Greatest Dad

The fans of Bobcat Goldwaithe’s last Sundance entry, Stay (retitled Sleeping Dogs Lie for its miniscule release), used bestiality as a metaphor for a meditation on the basic impossibility of total intimacy. And it was a comedy! It’s fans (I was definitely one) are few, but we’re a dedicated lot. The Sundance catalogue description of Bobcat’s follow-up is vague enough to suggest that this one may have a structuring taboo of its own. Let’s hope so — if you’re following up a movie that begins with the line “One night, in college, I blew my dog” with a movie called World’s Greatest Dad starring Robin Williams, let’s hope you’re working the bait and switch.

11. We Live in Public

Ondi Timoner, who won the Grand prize at Sundance several years back for her Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols documentary Dig!, returns with a feature-length look at a legendary footnote to the web 1.0, Quiet: We Live in Public. The brainchild of Pseudo.com’s Josh Harris, Quiet was essentially a cyber art version of The Real World, a living space where artists worked, slept, screwed and showered (communally!), all while under 24 hour surveilance. Timoner followed Harris for ten years, from post-internet panopticon to life off the grid.

12. Dead Snow

Nazi snow Zombies? I give.

13. Once More with Feeling

Indie film distribution pioneer Jeff Lipsky follows up his divisive Sundance 2006 feature Flannel Pajamas with a “dramatic comedy” about how karaoke can save lives. I give again!