BLOGGING SUNDANCE: Avant garde cinema, with a word from your sponsors

At first glance, the photo at left speaks for itself: This festival brought to you by your favorite printer powerhouse. Thankfully, a little context diminishes some of the dour irony. The HP projection lies on the floor of the [New Frontier on Main], one of the festival's fresh additions. Filling the bottom floor of the mall across from the Egyptian, New Frontier aims to spotlight experiments with film form that utilize contemporary technology. In addition to the wildly original A/V set-ups that decorate the walls and, in some circumstances, fill entire rooms, the exhibit also features top-of-the-line filmmaking equipment like HD cameras and Avid editing systems.

While New Frontier is hardly a haven for savants of esoteric cinema—it takes about ten minutes to absorb the installations and eyeball the fancy machinery—the intricate design of the collected work makes up for the sparsity of content. Paul Chan's "1st Light," which New Yorkers may recall from this past year's Whitney Biennial, explores the power of implication embedded in light and shadow. Chan projects a rectangular frame onto the floor of a vacant room, filling it with dark animated movements (from where, I don't know), creating a hypnotic window into a haunting and lyrical universe. Not bad for a festival that cynics mock for its ditzy fashion and pretty faces.

  Technogeeks, meanwhile, should appreciate "[MobiOpera]," a complex digital project billed as "collective public cinema" by its creators, who plan to hold daily casting sessions at New Frontier. Selected volunteers will carry around cell phones and upload video "soapisodes," which will contain written scenarios that incorporate the festival surroundings. I'd lend my assistance, if I wasn't already busy with, er, the festival. Not that they need my help—"Mobiopera" gets plenty of support from HP and Stella Artois.