Sundance festival : american fiction

When her best friend and roommate abruptly moves out to get married, Susan (Melanie Mayron), a wannabe gallery artist slumming it as a bar mitzvah photographer on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, finds herself adrift in both life and love. Could a new job be the answer? What about a fling with a married, older rabbi (Eli Wallach)? A touchstone of American independent filmmaking that went on to influence an entire subgenre of films and television shows (most famously Lena Dunham’s “Girls”) about young women trying to make it in the big city, Claudia Weill’s 1970s New York time capsule captures the complexities and contradictions of women’s lives and relationships during the era of second-wave feminism with both wry humor and refreshing frankness.

Lloyd and Frank, two lifelong friends and self-styled entrepreneurs in Austin, try to find the get-rich-quick scheme that will actually get them rich. Lloyd has developed a new invention that he's sure will finally lead to the success he and Frank have been chasing their whole lives. Their golden ticket is a combination mop, vacuum cleaner and floor polisher, but before prosperity arrives, reality intrudes on their plans.

A group of husbands with their wives participate in a reunion where everybody will find his hidden secret. The methods used are terrible, but usually work. Just usually.

The 12 years old well-bred Lonnie meets the impudent Karen on the street. They spend some time together and Karen teaches Lonnie some of her favorite occupancies, like make-up, shoplifting, skipping school and lying to the parent about it, but confessing to the priest later. But Karen also learns some honesty from Lonnie. A film about social differences and growing up.

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.

Suspended between carefree youth and the harsh realities of the adult world, a teenage girl experiences an unsettling awakening in this haunting vision of innocence lost. Based on the celebrated short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the narrative debut from Joyce Chopra features a revelatory breakout performance by Laura Dern as Connie, the fifteen-year-old black sheep of her family whose summertime idyll of beach trips, mall hangouts, and innocent flirtations is shattered by an encounter with a mysterious stranger (a memorably menacing Treat Williams). Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Smooth Talk captures the thrill and terror of adolescent sexual exploration as it transforms the conventions of a coming-of-age story into something altogether more troubling and profound.

Fictionalized portrait of one of history's great literary couples: Stein & Toklas. Summer 1930s France, Alice tends to ailing Gertrude; they visit Fernande Olivier, Guillaume Apollinaire, others; and Hemingway pops in.

Dick Kendred (Tom Villard) is a frustrated writer whose latest book has been turned down by every publisher around. His work seems to be missing one key ingredient: half-nude chicks. In an effort to cure his writer's block (and get some much needed inspiration), Dick rents a room from a couple of women who waste no time hitting on him. Talk about invoking the muse! This lighthearted romp won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

HEAT AND SUNLIGHT, winner of the Grand Prize at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival, explores the intersects of sexual obsession, jealousy and violence. The last few hours of a love affair between Mel Hurley (played by Director Rob Nilsson), a photographer traumatized by the Biafran War, and Carmen, (Conseulo Faust) his dancer girlfriend, is an improvised nightmare of fear and misunderstanding. Featuring the erotic still photography of Steve and Hildy Burns and ground- breaking music from David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

Donna and Michael are getting married. But first, they have to plan the reception, get the tux, buy the rings, and cope with their own uncertainty about the decision. Michael fears commitment. Donna has her doubts about Michael's immaturity. Both are getting cold feet.

William Douglas Street is bored with his life. Working for his father is getting to him, his wife wants more money, and he's had enough. His solution is to re-invent himself. He becomes a chameleon, taking on whatever role suits the situation. From reporter to doctor to lawyer, he impersonates anyone he feels a need to be and he can earn money being. The movie is based on the real figures William Douglas Street, Jr. and Erik Dupin.

A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.

Reeling from her mother's recent death, Ruby Lee Gissing relocates to Florida to start anew. After finding a job at a souvenir store, Ruby becomes friends with the shop's owner, Mildred Chambers, and slowly acclimates to her new surroundings. Before long, she's juggling the affections of Mildred's Lothario son, Ricky, and the good-natured Mike. As she wavers between Ricky and Mike, Ruby also tries to come to terms with her past.

Brewster seems to be an almost too perfect example of idyllic small-town America, with everyone living in peace and harmony. So when newcomer Whiley Pritcher starts up his own local cable TV show with the question "what's wrong with Brewster?", there surely can't be any deep dark secrets in the town that are just waiting to come to the surface - or can there? And when the question becomes "who's wrong with Brewster?" things start getting seriously nasty.

Jackie and Michael are coworkers at a large law firm. They decide to meet at Jackie's for dinner one night.

Deals with the lives of the three Irish Catholic McMullen brothers from Long Island, New York, over three months, as they grapple with basic ideas and values — love, sex, marriage, religion and family — in the 1990s. Directed, written, produced by and starring Edward Burns.

This film is based on a true story about a British teenager who allegedly poisoned family, friends, and co-workers. Graham is highly intelligent, but completely amoral. He becomes interested in science, especially chemistry, and begins to read avidly. Something of a social misfit, he is fascinated by morbid subjects such as poisons and murder. His family environment is intolerable to him and, in particular, his stepmother torments him. He decides to poison those who annoy him, first with antimony and later with thallium. He smugly thinks himself cleverer than all those around him, but nevertheless he is caught and sentenced to 'rehabilitation' at a psychiatric institution. Once there, he undertakes to deceive the new eminent psychiatrist sent there to 'cure' him, thereby securing his release.

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.

Mistaking a homeless man for a famous director, a British actress seeks career help from him.