Movies about the war in Iraq, immigration and US politics dominate the line-up of offerings for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the world's top independent film showcase, organizers announced this week.
Some 64 movies will compete for prizes in the top US and international drama and documentary categories at Robert Redford's festival next year in the western state of Utah that will run from Jan. 19 to 29.
While the movies unspooling at the festival, that frequently premieres small films that go on to become global mega-hits, are independent, they feature a galaxy of well known stars this year, including Robert Downey Jr, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sideways star Paul Giamatti, Rosario Dawson and Ryan Gosling.
But the glitter of Hollywood is likely to be overshadowed by the grittiness of war, illegal immigration into the US and politics when the 25th annual Sundance festival gets underway in the ski resort of Park City.
Some 29 countries are represented in the 2006 line-up, including South Africa, China, South Korea, Denmark, Argentina, Bosnia and Lebanon.
"This year's program reflects all the exceptional qualities we've come to associate with independent film," said Geoffrey Gilmore, the Sundance Film Festival's longtime director.
"Every category is filled with fresh, original voices with quality storytelling that take risks and will not be mistaken for typical mainstream fare," he added.
Some 15 films about the war in Iraq were submitted for consideration this year, and organizers picked three of them for the competition, two US documentaries and one overseas documentary.
The documentary Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, by Patricia Foulkrod, details the experiences of US soldiers during training, in combat in Iraq and later returning to America.
Another documentary movie, Iraq in Fragments by director James Longley, tells the story of Iraqis living in war conditions, under occupation and amid ethnic tension.
A third Iraq-themed film is included in another category yet to be announced, organizers said.
Immigration and the flow of people across borders inspired several American documentaries including Crossing Arizona about Latin Americans slipping over the border into the United States and God Grew Tired of Us, which follows four Sudanese youths who are heading to America through sub-Saharan Africa.
A Mexican documentary, No One, tells the story of a central American immigrant, while British-Italian-German production, I is for India, documents letters between Indian immigrants to Britain and their home country.
On the political front, the US documentary competitors include American Blackout, an exploration of voting troubles in US presidential elections, and the World According to Sesame Street, a look at how the children's television show is adapted around the world according to local conditions.
Next year's competition will offer a total of 120 films selected from 3,148 feature submissions, including 1,764 US feature films and 1,384 international features.
That marks an increase over this year's festival when 1,385 US features and 1,228 overseas films were considered.
The 2006 Sundance festival will host a whopping 84 world premieres, 18 North American premieres and 15 US premieres, with 48 first time feature filmmakers. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid screen icon Redford launched the festival in 1981 as a small affair that gave non-mainstream filmmakers a rare forum at which to exhibit their work, which was ruthlessly shunned by Tinseltown.
Since then, a host of hidden jewels have been discovered at Sundance, including the 1989 global hit Sex, Lies and Videotape, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, the dark Scottish film Trainspotting and last year's Oscar-nominated Maria Full of Grace.
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