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While much of the indie film community has been focused on SXSW, everyone else kept busy making deals, programming festivals, and releasing trailers. Indie Roundup presents an overview of what's been happening during the past week.

Indies Online. Our friends at SnagFilms announced a deal to provide a portion of of their library to Hulu for online distribution. Best known for offering free clips and TV episodes, Hulu is launching a new documentary film section. The SnagFilms library now features 600 docs available for free streaming. Both services remain US only, which I know is frustrating for our readers in Canada and the rest of the world. However, both services intend to expand to international streaming, which can't come soon enough to really expand the online audience for docs.

Deals. Emma Franz's Intangible Asset #82, which is playing at SXSW, and Ben Addelman and Samar Mallal's Nollywood Babylon, which played at Toronto and Sundance, were both acquired by Fox Lorber HT. Both docs will receive theatrical releases in the second quarter of 2009. [indieWIRE] Senator Entertainment picked up rights to Shana Feste's drama The Greatest, starring Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, and Carey Mulligan. No specific release plans were announced. [indieWIRE] Havana Marking's Afghan Star will arrive in theaters this summer, thanks to Zeitgeist, which acquired rights to the Sundance Audience Award winner. The doc looks at a very popular local version of American Idol in Afghanistan. [indieWIRE]

Box Office. Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning scored an amazing $54,798 per-screen average at the four theaters in New York and Los Angeles where it opened.

After the jump: Why did Sunshine Cleaning open so well? Plus: the Cleveland International Film Festival opens.

The professional seas are definitely clear for writer/director Shana Feste. She's got her first full-length feature script picked up by Barbarian Films, they're letting her helm it as her directorial debut, and now Variety reports that she's got two well-known stars to lead the cast: Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon. That's not too shabby at all for a new screenwriter and first-time director.

The Greatest is another upcoming drama based on the aftermath of loss, and one that should feel familiar to Sarandon, seeing as she just finished The Lovely Bones. Feste's script follows a family that's trying to deal with the loss of a teen son, and a young girl who somehow throws them into chaos. (Let me guess: a secret love child!?) Brosnan and Sarandon are playing the grieving parents.

Producer Beau St. Clair notes that Feste has a "rare ability to uniquely dramatize the complicated dynamics" of loss, and I would hope so, because it seems like every day we're getting more projects that deal with the aftermath of loss -- The Lovely Bones, Fireflies in the Garden, Hickory Nation, Birds in Fall, Beautiful Children ... the theme is hotter than Derek Zoolander.