Unprecedented number of Oregon films at Sundance Film Festival address social causes
Shawn Levy The Oregonian Photo The Register-Guard Chris Pietsch Peter D. Richardson
Four Oregon films are in the prestigious U.S. Documentary Competition, among at least seven movies from the state that will show at this year's festival.
/pf/resources/images/oregonlive/favicon.ico?d=1374
oregonlive
The

can seem like a gold rush, with hundreds of unheralded filmmakers journeying to Utah's Wasatch mountains in hopes of finding distribution deals or financing. In 2011, an unprecedented number of Oregon filmmakers will be among the throng hoping to strike paydirt.

Last week, Sundance revealed the names of the films that will screen at next month's event in Park City, Utah. Of the 112 movies accepted into the festival, from nearly 4,000 submitted, at least seven feature films were made in Oregon or by Oregon filmmakers -- easily the largest Oregon contingent ever at the festival.

Even more unusually, four of those seven films were among the 16 titles selected from 841 submissions for the prestigious U.S. Documentary Competition. Two are by Portland filmmakers: "How to Die in Oregon," directed by Peter Richardson, and "We Were Here," directed by David Weissman. A third,

is by Susan Saladoff, a first-time feature director from Ashland. The fourth, "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" is an Oregon-made documentary directed by New York filmmaker Marshall Curry.

In addition to the documentaries, three dramatic features made in Oregon will appear in noncompetitive categories: "Letters From the Big Man " (shot in southern Oregon and directed by Christopher Munch), "Meek's Cutoff" (shot in eastern Oregon and directed by Kelly Reichardt) and "The Woods" (shot in the unincorporated southern Oregon community of Lookingglass by Roseburg native Matthew Lessner).

With short film programs, in which Oregon animators and experimental filmmakers have often figured over the years, not announced at press time and a few key festival slots yet to be filled (including the opening night gala premiere, for which rumors have suggested Portland director Gus Van Sant's "Restless" is a candidate), 2011 is a banner year for Oregon-made movies at America's most prestigious film festival.

In a typical Sundance program, Oregon is represented by a couple of short films and perhaps a feature or two. But there are some years -- such as 2010 -- when little or even no work from the state finds its way to Park City.

The amount of feature film production in Oregon varies from year to year. But even at its most robust, local film production lags far behind the amount of work done in the two key film-industry states, California and New York; as well as such states as Florida and Illinois, which have more filmmaking facilities and larger resident film crews. Even with tax incentives meant to lure filmmaking, Oregon struggles to compete with states of similar size -- including Louisiana, New Mexico and Washington -- for what Hollywood calls "runaway productions" (movies shot on location outside of Southern California). And the homegrown Oregon film crop, while always feisty and often quite accomplished, is almost always money- and resource-challenged.

The Oregon films at Sundance 2011 indicate, however, that something is going on here. That's certainly how it seems to the folks who selected the program.

"There were a handful, or a few handfuls, of really great films made in the region," says Sundance's director of programming, Trevor Groth. "We definitely saw a rise in both the number and the caliber of films coming out of the Northwest."

Quantity, quality

And it's no surprise to Groth that the four in-competition documentaries from Oregon were invested in politically and socially charged subjects. "Hot Coffee" is an exposé about the legal and political war being waged by corporations seeking to curtail individuals' rights to file civil injury lawsuits. "How to Die in Oregon" examines the state's physician-assisted suicide law through the experiences of families facing end-of-life choices. "We Were Here" is a history of the impact of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s on the gay community of San Francisco (director Weissman lives in both San Francisco and Portland). And "If a Tree Falls" concerns the trial of an ecological activist who pleaded guilty to committing an arson fire in 2001 at two Oregon timber businesses.

"In general the films we see from Northwest filmmakers are issue-oriented," Groth says. "There's a progressive, politically minded group of filmmakers up there, and they use films as a means to get their messages across."

Curry ("If a Tree Falls"), the only one of the four documentarians who doesn't live here, has an idea about why so many films about hot-button issues emerge from Oregon. "It's a state with very different political perspectives living really close together," he says. "In our film, for instance, there are radical environmental activists from Eugene living just a few miles from conservative timber-industry folks. That proximity gives a filmmaker an active -- even combustible -- microcosm in which to study the different perspectives on a topic."

Getting a message out

That sense of engaged partisanship is echoed by the Oregon documentary filmmakers, who confirm that what they have to say about their subject is more important to them than any commercial potential the movies may have.

"My main goal," says Saladoff, "is to get the message (about the threat to citizens' rights to sue corporations) out to people who vote and who sit in jury boxes."

Weissman says of his film: "This is the most important thing I've ever done."

The call letting them know their work has been selected is a life-changing moment the lucky recipients say they'll always remember.

"I've dreamt of it, I've visualized it and I've asked everyone I know to visualize it," says Saladoff, a Sundance newcomer. "But I was speechless when I heard it."

"It is THE call you want to get," says Weissman, last at Sundance with 2002's "The Cockettes." And Richardson, who was in competition at Sundance in 2006 with "Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon," says the phone call this year "was equally exciting as the first time, but there's a little less disbelief this time -- or rather there's less waiting for the other shoe to drop and have them call to take back the invitation."

Although Oregon's strong showing is a fortunate and happy occasion, there is a note of sadness. The festival will premiere another documentary, "Bobby Fischer Against the World," which follows the story of the eccentric American chess champion and represents the last work of Portland native Karen Schmeer, a renowned film editor who was killed in January 2010 in a freak Manhattan auto accident.

One final note: Sundance's Park City at Midnight program, which features new horror and exploitation films, includes the premiere of a movie called "The Oregonian." The director, Calvin Reeder, is a Washingtonian who shot the picture in his home state and in California and didn't, presumably, choose its title in hopes of leeching some of the Beaver State's newfound movie mojo.

--