By Cynthia Wisehart
Busy (beautiful) day already with Evan Merav director of the Israeli
film Zion and His Brother (in World Premiere tonight at the
Egyptian), the perennial Bobby Bukowski, here this year with Oren
Moverman's elegiac The Messenger, and DP Brent Huffman with his
documentary short Uptopia, Part 3: The World's Largest Shopping
Mall--an understatement of a title if ever there was one (you'll
see
when I post more later).
I'll also post my conversation with DP Patrick Murguia, who shot for
Antoine Fuqua on his Brooklyn's Finest, premiering tonight at
the
Eccles. I just wrapped up with Davis Guggenheim, here with his new
documentary It Could Get Loud (best part--his iPhone stash of
his
own great photographs of Jack White). Later tonight, Alicia Conway,
director/writer of the short film Rite, and a report from NY
Lounge--where there will be gear. Also hear from Grant Davis who was
here last year with Michael Keaton's great The Merry Gentlemen
and cut for Max Mayer's Adam--in competition this year, so
hopefully will get to chat him in the next couple of days. more>>
Taking a
look at modern day Iran, Hamid Rahmanian's documentary, The Glass
House, follows a group of girls from the country's underclass
trying
to break the chains of Iranian social segmentation by attending a
one-of-kind rehabilitation center in uptown Tehran. With a virtually
invisible camera, The Glass House takes viewers on a
never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran with these girls'
brave
and defiant stories of abandonment, drug addiction, sexual abuse, and
hatred.
Paper Heart, a playfully imagined journey of one young
woman’s quest for love, is one of the 16 narrative features selected
to screen in the Dramatic Competition at the 2009 Sundance Film
Festival. Shot with Panasonic AJ-HDC27H VariCam HD Cinema cameras,
Paper
Heart stars Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad), Charlyne Yi
(Semi-Pro, Knocked Up) and Jake Johnson (Curb Your
Enthusiasm). The movie was directed by Nicholas Jasenovec, who
shares the screenwriting credit with Yi; Jay Hunter was the Director of
Photography. 
Robert
Siegel, recently nominated for a WGA award for The Wrestler,
talks with Digital Content Producer contributor Eric Melin about
bringing his directorial debut Big Fan to the screen as a
first-time director. The film, starring Patton Oswalt as an obsessed
New
York Giants fan who gets beat up by the team's star player, was filmed
on a low budget using Red Digital Cinema's Red One camera.
Filmmaker Joe
Berlinger returns to the Sundance Film Festival this year documenting
the law suit and consequences behind the destruction of a portion of
the
Ecuadorian rain forest from oil company drilling with a film competing
in the Documentary category called Crude. Berlinger chatted with
Millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman just before the
festival
got underway.