Louisiana is lighting up the movie screens at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Sundance will feature four films about Louisiana during is annual festival held Jan. 17 through Jan. 27 in Park City, Utah.
Sam Dunn, Sundance Film Festival’s Live Events technical manager and University of Utah film studies professor, said in an e-mail this trend can be attributed to the still newsworthy effects of Hurricane Katrina. The South is not usually targeted by the film business because it is part of “flyover country,” Dunn said, meaning any part of the United States that is not New York or Los Angeles. The films about Louisiana include “The Yellow Handkerchief,” “Trouble the Water,” “The Second Line,” and “An American Soldier.” Director Udayan Prasad’s “The Yellow Handkerchief” features actors William Hurt and Maria Bello, along with Academy Award winning producer Arthur Cohn and Academy Award winning cinematographer Chris Menges. The movie takes place in a rural Louisiana town where three strangers, one of which is a recently released convict portrayed by Hurt, take a joy-ride across the state and share stories of their personal lives. It was filmed in Abita Springs. Writer Peter Hamill said in an e-mail that while he was at the Lion’s Head, a bar in New Orleans, he overheard a story which he used in the creation of the film. Hamill, a native of Brooklyn, said Louisiana left him with many memories. “The combination of humid heat, music, red beans and rice stayed for life,” he said. “Trouble the Water,” directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and produced by Danny Glover, tells of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The documentary follows the lives of New Orleans musician and filmmaker Kimberly Rivers and her husband during the aftermath of Katrina. It features Rivers’ own footage of New Orleans before, during and after the storm. “Trouble the Water” has been nominated for Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize, which honors the best documentary and dramatic film of the year. “The Second Line,” a short film, is also about Hurricane Katrina victims. Columbia University student John Magary received the top award at the University’s annual film festival, according to Columbia University’s website. The short is about two cousins who must clean out a flooded house to earn a living after one of their savings is stolen. “Katrina’s surely the raison d’être behind the 2008 Sundance Film Festival’s Louisiana boomlet,” Dunn said. Edet Belzberg’s documentary, “An American Soldier,” features Houma resident Sergeant First Class Clay Usie, an Army recruiter. It chronicles nine months of Usie’s life and focuses on four of his young recruits as they undergo mental and physical training before they deploy to Iraq. The documentary competition received 1,573 documentaries this year, according to Sundance Institute. Only 16 of them made the cut. Dunn, who is also a Festival film screener, said the selection process is very competitive. “Your odds of acceptance are much better at Harvard Law,” Dunn said.
—-Contact Drew Belle Zerby at [email protected]