Cardoso's triumph was all the more impressive given that it was the Bogotá-born director's debut feature. Cardoso's film also captured Special Jury Honors for Lupe Ontiveros and America Ferrera, the actor team at the heart of Real Women's appeal. Winick won the dramatic directing prize for his effervescent comedy about a New York City private school student who comes home for Thanksgiving with a desperate and improper crush on his stepmother. Tadpole was produced by Winick's Manhattan-based company, InDigEnt (Independent Digital Entertainment), which also produced another digital film in competition, Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity. Miller's film won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, and the Dramatic Cinematography Award for DP Ellen Kuras.

"Ellen Kuras, who won the cinematography award for Rebecca's film, shot with Mini-DV Cam," Winick said at the podium at the closing- night awards ceremony. "That's why we started InDigEnt — to give filmmakers a chance to experiment in this new digital medium. It's unbelievable what Ellen and Rebecca did with that film, and I guess I did a pretty good job too."

		Gary Winick click for larger view

"Pretty good" by Winick's yardstick, described the many packed Eccles Theater showings for those Guild indies screening out of competition. Eccles premier events included Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Mira Nair's Hysterical Blindness, Troy Miller's Run Ronnie Run!, Ernest Dickerson's Our America, Mark Romanek's One Hour Photo, Gus Van Sant's Gerry, Miguel Arteta's screening The Good Girl, and George Hickenlooper with his brooding drama The Man From Elysian Fields. American Showcase and Spectrum films included Bart Freundlich's metaphysical road movie, World Traveler, starring Billy Crudup, and Rain, directed by Katherine Lindberg.

A weary but excited Miguel Arteta, who has literally grown up at Sundance, starting with his debut feature Star Maps, right on through to The Good Girl, locked-down distribution via Fox Searchlight a few days after his jam-packed Saturday premiere.

At the DGA's Sundance party at Mediterraneo on lower Main Street, directors Mary Lambert, Euzhan Palcy and Hickenlooper welcomed Sundance filmmakers to the intimate two-hour buffet.

"In 1997 a group of independent filmmakers banded together to form the Guild's Independent Directors Committee," Hickenlooper announced. "We believed that as independents we had to fiercely guard our creative rights. Today, the term independent filmmaker often means independent of having distribution; specialty distributors have become arms of the studios, and our creative rights as indie filmmakers are under attack more than ever. The DGA is one of the few organizations that can make a difference in preserving the way you want to make your films."

Euzhan Palcy talked about her first visit to Sundance, 17 years ago. "When I came here from Europe, I was not a member of any guild," Palcy said. "We do not have the same problem of protecting our creative rights in Europe."

Born in Martinique and now living in Paris and Los Angeles, Palcy was one of the first prominent European directors to benefit from Sundance. Her film, A Dry White Season, was nurtured through the Sundance Lab in 1985 before ultimately being made by MGM.

"In France, the director's creative rights are protected by law," Palcy said. "But I was very surprised to learn what they could do to a director's film when I came to America. That is why I turned to the DGA. It was the best way to ensure I had the same protections over my work as the law guarantees me in Europe."

	Euzhan Palcy, Kasi Lemmons and Mary Lambert click for larger view

Guarantees of any sort were hard to come by when the Guild-sponsored panel, "Personal Creativity in the Age of Market-Driven Films: A Directors' Forum" kicked off at the Prospector Theater. Directors Brad Anderson, Miguel Arteta, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mary Lambert, Euzhan Palcy, Todd Solondz and Kasi Lemmons gave hard, honest opinions on the state of auteur filmmaking.

"An art film," Solondz deadpanned in response to moderator David D'Arcy's query as to why there aren't more $60 million art films, "is what the studios call a movie that doesn't make any money." Amidst audience laughter, Solondz added: "I think we should take a look at the term independent. Spielberg is the most independent filmmaker because he can do whatever he wants. The same for James Cameron. The rest of us here are all pretty dependent, as far as I can see."

Other key issues that captured the panel's attention included test screenings, director's final cut, creative freedom relative to the size of the budget and an indie film's running length.

"Final cut may exist contractually," said Brad Anderson, "but there are so many external and political pressures placed upon the director that negate its power on paper. On Next Stop, Wonderland I had a clause in my contract that said if the film scored above a certain percentile in test screenings, I could have that cut of the movie. If it went below, then Miramax would essentially have final cut, which is what ultimately happened."

The subject of test screenings filled up a large portion of the seminar. When asked about her experiences, Kasi Lemmons said, "I find test screenings excruciatingly painful. Both my films did not test well, yet one was successful at the box office, and one was not. I made dynamic and subtle changes after both test screenings and in both cases the changes I made tested worse in subsequent screenings.

"However, as painful as the process may be, a director can never be closed off to self-examination," she added. "My agent said to me after one test screening, 'It's not a painting, Kasi.' And he's right. This medium requires participation and collaboration with the audience. The important thing is to not panic [after a poor test screening] and destroy the camaraderie of your team."

Delving into the area of running times for specialty films, moderator D'Arcy asked Miguel Arteta: "Why are some directors allowed the right to make a film longer than 110 minutes and how did they earn that privilege?"

"You're asking the wrong person," Arteta laughed back. "My feeling is that any independent movie longer than 90 minutes should be forced to show a dissertation for every extra minute. If you can't get your point across in 90 minutes in an indie film, then there's a serious problem."

		Sundance's Geoff Gilmore welcomes audience at the Prospector Theatre click for larger view

By week's end, the omnipresent cell phones of Park City had given over to ski racks, as winter sports enthusiasts rolled into town for the Olympics. So what will Sundance 2002 be remembered for? A wide-ranging slate of the best that independent film has to offer, seemingly a given every January in Park City. But more than just a forum for independent American and World cinema (like Julio Medem's challenging Sex and Lucia from Spain or Beto Brant's compelling Brazilian tale, The Trespasser, which won the Latin American cinema award), Sundance 2002 served up several keys to the future of alternative storytelling — the triumph of digital filmmaking, and the undeniably strong showing by Guild directors.