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One of my favorite things about the Sundance Film Festival has always been the different shorts programs they offer. These are short films from around the world that you would probably never be able to see anywhere else. There is always a great variety of different material, styles, and performances. Sure, sometimes you'll run into something that you might not enjoy, but you know that within ten minutes or so, you'll be watching something else. Not to be cliche, but it's a bit like a box of chocolates ... some are good, some aren't.

This year's Sundance shorts are being offered up on iTunes, which is a fantastic way for these films to reach a new audience. Typically you might see these films at Sundance, and then never be able to find them again. If you were lucky, you might see them on the Sundance Channel, but even the chances of that were slim. Kudos to the festival and Apple for making these available online. As much as I'm a fan of flash fiction and short stories, short films are perfect for me, and I'm sure there are other people out there who enjoy them.

Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore announced the lineup of films that will be screening at the 2007 festival today, and said that choosing the 64 films that will appear in the four competition categories (dramatic, documentary, world cinema dramatic and world cinema documentary) was harder this year than ever before. While that's a bit like someone saying "You guys are the best crowd ever!" they definitely did have more films to choose from for the same number of slots, so who can blame him? They received 3,287 films for consideration this year, the most in the festival's 39-year history.

122 total films were chosen (not all of them screen in competition), and 82 of them will be world premieres. That's a heck of a lot of movies over two weeks. If you've ever attended Sundance in the past, then you know how difficult it is to get tickets. Passes are expensive and sell out quickly (in fact, only one level of pass is currently left, the $2500 Express Pass-B), however individual tickets will go on sale the week of January 9. You can pre-register right now through January 4 on the Sundance FIlm Festival website to receive a random, lottery-style time that will allow you to log in and purchase tickets that week.

Sundance is one of my favorite film festivals because of the sheer volume and variety of films that you are able to pick and choose from. Plus it's a chance to meet the filmmakers, other film lovers, and to experience it in beautiful Park City, Utah. The last two years that I've gone it was with minimum preparation and usually as a last-minute decision, but I've still managed to see at least 15 films in about five days each time. It's well worth the trip and enduring the cold to step out of your own world and into a creative environment, if just for a little while.

You can download a PDF file of all the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selections here. The festival runs from January 18th through the 28th -- time to start picking and choosing!

We had intended to cover Slamdance - you know, that other film festival tucked away in the bowels of Sundance - during our 12 sleep-deprived days in Park City. Really, we did. I had my credentials info all together, ready to take to the Slamdance office to get my press pass and everything. And then somewhere in between Man Push Cart and Quinceañera, we just ran out of time and energy. But never fear, dear readers.

Culturepulp's Mike Russell not only covered Slamdance, he drew cartoons about it! And just like you, we love to get our film festival breakdown through cartoons - after all, how many whining essays on how Sundance has really gone downhill in the last 20 years, and how bad the parking sucks, and how jam-packed it is, can you really stand to read? Mike saw 16 films in a few days, fueled by sleep deprivation and altitude sickness  (so keep that in mind when you read his capsule reviews, eh?), and he's documented all of it. So pop on over and enjoy his take on this year's Slamdance films and parties. It's almost like being there, only without the free beer and sushi.

It wasn't all just snow and screenings at Sundance for the Cinematical; every chance we had, we were snapping pics as well. Here's a round-up of the best of our Sundance pics (more photos past the jump).

Ahh, Sundance. After 12 days in Park City, where the average temp was something like 12 degrees and anyone who made it to less than 3 screenings a day was kicked off the island, I gave the kids a day off to recuperate. Now we're back (baby), and we have enough backed-up content to choke a horse. Stay tuned, because over the next two weeks, we'll have more reviews, video interviews, deal news and, coming today and tomorrow, a few extra-special festival roundups. Have any lingering questions about the fest? Comment here and we'll try to get it all sorted.

Someone has made a terrible mistake  – they've leaked a partial list of this year's Sundance parties to us nerds. Since most of us on the Cinematical/Blogging Sundance team like to check into our hyperbolic chambers by 11 at the latest, we thought we'd pass this highly classified information on to you. We'll update this list daily until the Festival ends or the Party Gods strike us down (whichever comes first). Feel free to post your own party deets and gossip in the comments.

Friday Night, Jan. 20

6:00PM
Opening Gala Salt Lake City
Jeanne Wagner Theatre, 138 West Broadway
Salt Lake City, Utah

7:00PM
Starbucks Salon (curated by Gen Art)
449 Main Street

9:00pm
Slamdance Opening Party
Star Bar, The Night Club 268 Main St.

9:00 PM Blender Sessions at Tao (formerly Harry O's)
427 Main Street

9:30 PM – 1:00 AM
ICM Party
Premiere Lounge 573 Main St.

11:30 PM
Weinstein Co.
Lucky Number Slevin Party, Village at the Lift
825 Main St.

I couldn't get a steady wifi connection at this afternoon's Sundance Opening Press Conference at the Kimball Art Center, so here's my "live blog" ... an hour after the fact:

Geoffrey Gilmore (fesitval co-director and programmer), Nicole Hofcener (director of opening night film, Friends with Money) and Robert Redford (duh) take the stage. Geoff starts, and right away the agenda seems to be about proving that Sundance still has cred:

"It's a pleasure to have an opening night press conference, we haven't in the past. Fest in the 20th year, Institute in its 25th. People don't understand the merging of the institute and the festival. Truth is, it's really hard to talk abou the festival when you haven't seen the films yet...I can tell you that I think the fest is as independent as a festival we've done in years, but you'll be the judge of that."

He lists the numbers on this year's program:

120 features
84 world premires
48 first time featuremakers
102 films to be presented on digital projection (!)
(Only 41 shot on digital formats)
46 docs
35 features by women - speaks to our diverstiy, speaks to what this festival is about

if the number of films being made in this country is any indication of the level of interest in independent cinema ... look at the diversity of the range of films that are at this festival.

Geoff wants to ask two things of the press: that we try not to talk about the films by reducing them to summary points, and that we hold your judgements about what the festival is, until we get through the festival, and that we try to see work we wouldnt ordinarily get a chance to see (obviously, that's three. Wonder which one he made up on the spot?)

In a recent interview at the Television Critics Association press tour (where he stopped by to promote the Sundance Channel) Robert Redford shot back at  complaints that the Sundance Film Festival has gone Hollywood. "I don't think that's happened," he said. "I think Hollywood is just taking films from the festival because they realize they have worth." Though the silver fox acknowledges that crowds have grown over the years – "Once it started to roll and you had the success of films like Sex, Lies, and Videotape and other films, then suddenly more people began to come ... Then the paparazzi came, and then the fashion came. And it's like a pebble being dropped in a pond, but these ripples come out" – he maintains that at its core, the festival has followed the same programming philosophy for the past twenty years. He seems to lament the fact that the festival – his baby – gets such a bad rap from media focused on bling and bloat. "When a media person comes in and looks at the festival, but from an outer tier, they're going to see a completely different picture than the one we're programming," he said. "They'll think it's about Paris Hilton, which is not about anything." I'm heading to Park City for the first time ever on Wednesday – let's hope I'm given an opportunity to prove Bob right.

In about three weeks, I'm going to pack a couple of bloggers in my suitcase and head on out to Utah to infiltrate the Sundance Film Festival. We're working on putting together a nightly roundtable – to be hosted by Weblogs, Inc CEO Jason Calacanis and featuring a host of special film-world guests – which we'll videotape and throw up on the web in easily digestible (and downloadable) episodes. We've got a video producer, and we've got the talent – we just need a location.

Do you have a space we could use? An office? A storefront? A classroom? A really big truck? In exchange for a couple of hours use per afternoon, we could offer you mad promotion on the vblog itself, which will available for download here on Cinematical, on iTunes and at AOL Movies. Let's say you work for a company called ... Company X. Company X presents The Cinematical Sundance Vidcast. That's got a nice ring to it, now doesn't it?

As far as location goes, we're not exactly picky - we need to have power, and we need room for about 5 speakers (as in, humans, speaking), a couple of cameras and a 2-person crew. If you've got a stage or room for an audience, all the better, but neither is essential.

C'mon - help a blogger out. Contact us here, and we'll go from there.

And thanks!