Utah stories make a splash at Sundance Film Festival

Some years, the only time movie watchers at the Sundance Film Festival see anything of life in Utah is when they go outside.

Not this year.

Three of the movies picked for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Premieres slate, announced Monday, were filmed in Utah — two of them by Utah filmmakers. A fourth is directed by an alumnus of Brigham Young University.

The documentaries deal with such far-ranging topics as the appeal of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the effect of football on Utah's Pacific Islander community, the state of American education and the career of Utah maverick filmmaker Trent Harris.

The Premieres slate, also announced Monday, includes a Utah-made comedy: "Don Verdean," directed by Jared Hess, and written by Hess and his wife, Jerusha. The Hesses are Salt Lake City residents best known for their 2004 Sundance debut, "Napoleon Dynamite."

"It's pretty awesome," said Tony Vainuku, director of the documentary "In Football We Trust," who grew up a block away from Salt Lake Community College's The Grand Theatre — which will be a Sundance venue for the first time this year.

"That's what's so special for us as filmmakers from Salt Lake City," said the film's producer and co-director, Erika Cohn. "We spent five years in the Salt Lake community [making this movie]. It couldn't be better."

"In Football We Trust" follows four teen boys from Utah's Pacific Islander community as they navigate the world of high-school football. The boys deal with such issues as extreme poverty, gang influence and family pressures to succeed on the field.

Vainuku knows this community well.

"I grew up in the culture," he said. "I'm Tongan. I grew up playing football."

Vainuku played two seasons as a linebacker for Highland High. His cousin, Joe Katoa, was an all-state linebacker in 1997, but he later turned to crime and ended up in prison. "That was the basis for what inspired the story," Vainuku said.

Another Utah connection led Vainuku and Cohn to work together: Geralyn Dreyfous, founder of the Utah Film Center and executive producer of the Oscar-winning "Born Into Brothels," paired them up.

Dreyfous, Vainuku said, "couldn't believe it was a story right in her backyard."

Documentarian Amy Berg found a different story in Utah's backyard. Her movie "Prophet's Prey" looks at Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — and how he, even while serving a prison sentence for sexual assault, wields influence over his followers.

"I found Warren Jeffs to be a very interesting character," said Berg, who received an Oscar nomination for her 2006 film "Deliver Us From Evil," about the sex-abuse scandal among Catholic priests.

Berg said Jeffs' crimes, like those of the Catholic priests, are examples of "systemic abuse … the relationship between power and manipulation, followers and innocent victims."

Berg has ventured to the twin communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where many of Jeffs' followers still reside. "It takes them like seconds to know someone's in town," Berg said, adding that seeing the white pickup trucks of the FLDS security, "The God Squad," was intimidating.

"The biggest question is: Why is this still going on, five years after [Jeffs] was arrested?," Berg said. "It's almost like he's more powerful in prison."

For Brad Besser, the road to Sundance started when he saw Trent Harris' oddball comedy "Ruben and Ed," as an eighth-grader — and how he and his Brighton High classmates would quote such lines as "My cat can eat a whole watermelon."

Later, Besser took filmmaking classes from Harris at the now-defunct Utah Film & Video Center. "He said all you need to do is get a camera and make a movie," Besser said.

Besser has made that movie, "Beaver Trilogy Part IV," which examines how a chance encounter Harris had in a TV station parking lot changed the director's life.

Harris, working in the late '70s at KUTV, once met Richard LaVon Griffiths, aka "Groovin' Gary," in the parking lot. Griffiths, fascinated with the station's helicopter, struck up a conversation with Harris and invited him to check out Griffiths' upcoming talent show in Beaver, Utah.

What Harris saw, and shot, in Beaver, became a short documentary, "The Beaver Kid." Years later, when Harris tried his luck at Hollywood, he retold the story twice in short-film form. In 2000, Harris combined the three films into one presentation, "Beaver Trilogy," which played the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, was extolled on public radio's "This American Life," and gained acclaim as a pop-culture artifact.

"I really wanted to get to know Trent," Besser said. "What kind of mind-set, what kind of brain would put the three movies together?"

Besser, who once worked as a volunteer at Sundance, said the thrill of getting the phone call from Sundance program director Trevor Groth — telling him his film got into the festival — was special. "I actually was at work at the time, and I just let out a holler," Besser said.

"I don't think you ever get sick of hearing from Sundance that you're in their festival," said filmmaker and BYU alum Greg Whiteley.

Whiteley is making his third trip to Sundance with a film, with the documentary "Most Likely to Succeed."

Previously, Whiteley came to Sundance in 2005, with the documentary "New York Doll," about rocker-turned-Mormon Arthur "Killer" Kane, and returned last year with "Mitt," an inside look at Mitt Romney's presidential run.

Whiteley was in post-production on "Mitt" as he started filming "Most Likely to Succeed," which he describes with a couple of questions: "Is it possible that education — this system designed to meet the needs of the Industrial Revolution — needs to change? And if it did change, what would it look like?"

Whiteley said he came into the topic as a neutral observer. "We're not selling anything. I have no dog in this race at all," he said. "I've got two kids. I speak as a narrator, as a parent."

Among the big thinkers Whiteley interviews is author and "Jeopardy!" legend Ken Jennings, a former Utah resident.

Education is "not very sexy" as a documentary topic, Whiteley acknowledges. "We're presenting a topic in a new way, in a way that's fresh, in a way that will surprise people."

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort.

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