Sudance Film Festival organized annually from 1978 is the undeniable leader among American festivals and at present one of the most prominent events promoting independent cinema worldwide. Every year the festival receives around 11 thousands film entries. The competitive programme is comprised of fiction and documentary films both of feature and short length. The off competition programme includes a group of sections such as New Frontier, Spotlight or Park City at Midnight and a brand new programming category NEXT launched two years ago that screens extremely low-budget films. Sundance is one of the few American festivals that decided to implement a “Focus on Film” campaign rather than organize “a red carpet” festival.
For the 2012 edition the festival received 7,675 entries from all over the world which makes 1200 more than last year. “Frozen stories” by Grzegorz Jaroszuk is the fourth Polish film selected to the short film competition in the recent three years. Last year the documentary “Out of reach” by Jakub Stożek was awarded the Honorable Mention in Short Filmmaking, while two years later two short fiction films – “Echo” by Magnus von Horn and Polish-Swedish “Birthday” by Jenifer Malmqvist were selected to be screened in the same competition.
“Frozen stories” produced by Polish National Film School in Łódź and EasyBusy from its premiere screening at Locarno this August was awarded a few times so far just to mention its EFA nomination granted in Switzerland or the Grand Jury Prize for the Live Action Short received at the recent AFI Fest in Los Angeles. Grzegorz Jaroszuk’s film is a grotesque tale of two young people working at the same supermarket. As the worst employees they are ordered to find a purpose of their lives and in just two days start a better, brand new life. All of the sudden a popular television show helps them to complete this task. The film is a perverse story, set in the coolest supermarket’s corners that shows the deep loneliness of two outsiders and their desperate struggles to escape from the lives they are living.
This year’s edition of Sundance Film Festival will be held between 19th and 29th January 2012.
More information on festival and the complete list of films included in the short film programme to be found at the official festival’s website