The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah kicks off today and Eric will be blogging live all weekend as he covers the best in the Short Film Program. Check back throughout the holiday weekend for reviews, links, and maybe even some of the actual shorts themselves posted right here! This blog is also a part of the live coverage over at DigitalContentProducer.com, where Eric works as an associate editor. Head on over there for a podcast with Michel Gondry (”Eternal Sunshine,” “Be Kind, Rewind”) and more…
This year, 45 of the 83 short films in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival are available at for viewing and/or download at iTunes, Netflix, and Xbox.com.
Today is the first day of Sundance’s 10 Shorts 10 Days, and the first short film to stream for free for a day is Director Spencer Susser’s darkly funny charmer, I Love Sarah Jane. Tomorrow there will be another short will be streaming for free, so head there now to check it out.
The zombie movie has thrived in recent years, with re-imaginings from 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, and is still being successfully tweaked—as this Australian import shows. Shot digitally using the Thomson HD Viper Camera, I Love Sarah Jane is set in a parent-free neighborhood where the adults are either dead or undead. Without anyone to tell the kids to clean up the house, it just isn’t going to happen.
I joke, but what makes Susser’s film so effective is the matter-of-fact way that the kids deal with their bleak situation. It’s nothing special to anyone to be carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows on your back like 13-year old Jimbo does. That’s just survival. Dark clouds loom—literally—overhead as he rides his bike around a trash-strewn, smoldering street. Amidst this awful backdrop blooms a chance for love—at least in Jimbo’s head. As a bored Sarah Jane watches a newscaster on TV describe the proper way to handle undead body disposal (incineration, of course), Jimbo sits down to make his move.
Any movie, even a short one, is reliant on a strong ending to make a good lasting impression. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that I Love Sarah Jane, written by Susser and David Michod, has a very satisfying one. It is possible to call a zombie film “cute”? For the record, I didn’t just do that; I merely asked a question.
I Love Sarah Jane was shown twice last year in Venice—once in Venice, Calif. at the Swerve Digital Film Festival, and once in Venice, Italy as part of 2007 Venice Days. Susser is a director and film editor who splits his time between Los Angeles and Australia. The entire film was produced digitally in a 1:2.35 scope format and graded at Bean in Sydney, Australia, on a daVinci Resolve.
Check out the film’s MySpace page for more festival showings, watch the trailer below, or check out the full film here.
YouTube Direct I Love Sarah Jane trailer
