This is the first year einsiders.com has covered Slamdance and Sundance. Stephen has been housed comfortably (well, it's a dorm complete with randomly assigned roomies from Australia) on Main Street, Park City, while my wife and I went for the cheap seats in a neighboring town. Still, the compact nature of Slamdance has been manageable for me--the festival is housed in one hotel, the Treasure Mountain Inn.

All Night Bodega, a feature film, 90 minutes in length, shot on color digital video:

On my second day at Slamdance, I was fortunate to catch Felix Olivier's intimate character piece All Night Bodega. The wonderful cast is lead by newcomer Tammy Trull as Venus, a tough Washington Heights, New York City, Latina whose parents are not in the picture and whose step-mother is having doubts about her role as "nurturer."

"Sometimes you can't control what happens to you," the stepmother tells Venus. And sometimes, you are the master of your own destiny, having to live with the decisions you make. All Night Bodega is about the consequences of those decisions and, perhaps, a second chance.

After a fight with her caring but out-gunned stepmother, Venus ventures into the streets, and in time, is befriended by Juanita (Romi Diaz) the leader of a girl gang of drug dealers. Venus is savagely beaten by the other gals in the gang in an apparent initiation ritual and she bears the scars to show it--both inside and out.

Olivier doesn't throw away good talent here. The screenplay efficiently permits its characters to ripen and the audience cares. Of course, with a cast this talented and attractive, All Night Bodega is hard to dislike. Jaime Tirelli (who I last saw in another good Latino influenced film Girl Fight) fills in handsomely playing Ralph, a long-time undercover police officer that becomes involved with Venus' stepmother. Tirelli has one of those friendly faces that effortlessly deliver sincerity when needed. His Ralph is an aging Serpico who has seen too many bad things happen to the indefensible. His interest in Venus is dangerously genuine.

A provocative love triangle develops involving another undercover officer named Papo (working with Ralph), the sadistic Juanita, and the sprite-like Venus as the object of their affections. Venus, depicted as fifteen years old, is a woman physically but still maturing emotionally. Instinctively, Venus recognizes that her body can be a source of great power. Her affair with the powerful Juanita is all about necessity, but her involvement with Papo is something more, something needed more.

Director Felix Olivier was kind enough to give me a few minutes following the screening. We were able to find refuge in a press tent set up in the Inn by the Slamdance guys and gals.

"I've done about everything in this business except hair and make-up," Said Olivier, a well groomed man with gray hair where black or dark brown once was the color.

Olivier told me that the genesis for this film was the product of a documentary he directed called 18B Justice and a newspaper article he read about a young girl who got involved with a girl gang and later was killed.

"It is very difficult to sell Hispanic films because you have no big established names. When Spike Lee came out independent filmmaking began to challenge the white establishment. Now, you have Hispanic themes to deal with."

Olivier is not Hispanic. His French accent is a dead giveaway.

"I'm French but the culture is close, we both have a Roman language." He said.

He told me about taking his film to a film festival in Cuba.

"It was wonderful. They have excellent theaters there. There was no feeling of repression, it was a very good experience."

Olivier is ambitious.

"I'm looking at adapting a Cuban book. It is difficult, there will be more characters."

Bodega has a big cast, I observed.

"Yes, and the budget was $100,000.00. We tricked the digital camera with filters to achieve a naturalistic look. We spent a full month with the actors rehearsing prior to shooting. It was a very organic process with a proximity between the characters, intimate."

Intimate is right, Trull, who plays fifteen year old Venus in the film, was called upon to take part in some steamy scenes. She is twenty-two in real life. Her connection with the character was close. She told the audience at the screening that she "grew up in the projects in New Jersey" and it was important to her that she got certain things down.

"The accent," she said, "the front these kids put on, and the underwear had to be right, it took me a long time to pick it out."

Bodega gets the front down pretty well as best I could tell. Olivier credited the fine dialogue in large part to his co-writer Richard Schlesinger. "He has a good ear for it."

I joked with him about the presence of a Scarface (DePalma version) movie poster in the lair of the girl gang's headquarters.

"Oh, I have to credit that to my production designer, Rich Cefalo, it made sense that it be there, it would be there."

Felix Olivier's All Night Bodega is a delicately brutal film worthy of a look.

Peluca, a short film, 9 minutes in length, shot in grainy over-exposed 16mm:

Prior to the screening of the very serious Bodega, we were treated to a clever and funny short named Peluca from filmmaker Jared Hess. The tagline here is: illegal ninja books, unicorns, fanny packs. This 9 minute short is strange fun following a day in the life of high school kid Seth (the hilarious Jon Heder) as he and two friends cut classes in search of wigs and fanny packs. Following the screening Hess told us that the short is being adapted into a feature length film entitled Napoleon Dynamite.

Missing Peace, a documentary film, 92 minutes in length, making its world premiere:

Missing Peace may prove to be one of the more controversial films to be screened in Park City this week. This documentary from the odd directing and producing duo of Victoria Bruce (an earthy well-spoken journalist) and Karin Hayes (the one with the camera who could easily pass for Brittany Spears) originated with the idea of covering an idealistic presidential candidate in Columbia but became something much more important (and juicier) when the candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, is kidnapped prior to the election.

Amazingly, the film reveals that kidnappings are so common in Columbia that there are laws permitting candidates to run for office even though they have been kidnapped. For example, during the presidential campaign, the family is shown making good use of Betancourt's likeness in the form of a life-size photographic cardboard cut-out filling in for the candidate's presence.

Tracing Betancourt's upbringing through good use of home movie footage, we learn that she was a child of privilege living away from her native Columbia. Her father was a diplomat and her mother a beauty queen (now an amazingly preserved 65 year old devoted to finding homes for orphaned children in Bogotá). Betancourt marries her first husband, a French Diplomat, and has two children. Later divorced, she tells us, in a haunting narration, that she had the opportunity to leave Columbia and live somewhere else, somewhere safer.

Driving into Columbian politics, one might say naively, Betancourt never seems to lose her passion for exposing corruption in the highest levels of government. After serving four years as a Congresswoman, Betancourt is elected to the Senate. In early 2002, she embarks upon her most dangerous political campaign, for president.

Those with little knowledge Columbian politics might be overwhelmed and confused by exactly what Betancourt was trying to achieve by running for president. Her campaign appears well-funded and spirited delivering the messages of peace and an end to governmental corruption but there is little likelihood of victory given the political machine that Betancourt has publicly rejected. The other candidates for president are shown on the stump making no mention of Betancourt even after her kidnapping. Betancourt is a fringe player in the presidential race but clearly a politician whose future impact could change the Columbian political landscape.

On a personal level, Missing Peace is a very sad story, a tragedy that continues to play itself out even today. Betancourt's father dies while she is being held prisoner, and he leaves his daughter a touching message. Communication with Betancourt is limited to appearances on television and radio broadcasts. The plight really touches you. It is also incredibly frustrating--they know who has her but nobody with power seems interested in doing anything about it.

Missing Peace does run on a bit too long spending time lingering repetitively on the agony experienced by Betancourt's second husband, Juan Carlos, as he quits his job and runs the campaign in her absence. At times, it plays like a one line joke, the worn-thin initial shock that the campaign continues with Betancourt appearing only as a mock-up. The message of her party warps uncomfortably into a single call for her release. Later, an eerie proof of life video tape from the FARC guerrilla group that kidnapped Betancourt is all Juan Carlos has to reassure him that his beloved still lives. Juan Carlos laments while driving in his car to campaign that he misses Batencourt's voice, her mere presence, and when he sleeps everything. Moving stuff!

Following the screening, Juan Carlos himself stood with the filmmakers and told us that he believed that no harm would come to his wife at the hands of the FARC. Instead, he feared that she might be injured or killed in a battle between FARC and governmental forces. I asked him if he feared for his life or was in any kind of danger. He said that he was only in danger when he ventured far out from the city of Bogotá. While in the city, he said, he felt safe.

A heated discussion at the Q & A session caused me to question the objective of the film. Certainly, given Betancourt's continued captivity, the filmmakers admit that freeing their subject is a chief goal but something else bothered me. The Bush Administration is so preoccupied with events transpiring in Iraq that there is little time to devote to pressing problems in our own hemisphere. Films like Missing Peace remind us that we are all Americans in this part of the world whether we come from the North, the South, or parts in between.

Coming soon more reviews and coverage of the festival including Amna's take on another feature film Assisted Living.





Jonathan reports on Day 1 of Slamdance
Jonathan reports on Day 2 of Slamdance
Amna Kahn-Hickman reviews Sundance entry Deadend.com
Jonathan reports on Day 3 of Slamdance
Jonathan reports on Day 4 of Slamdance

Jonathan W. Hickman