The Sundance Film Festival is a glorious celebration of movie making magic and artistic views. From its beginnings in 1978, the festival has attracted celebrities from across the globe. The event is hosted locally in Utah, but one may sometimes feel that the star-studded event may not be for the locals. But a few local actors and filmmakers are helping to bring the festival back to its Utahan roots.
Sam Rushforth has been the Dean of Science and Health at UVU for the past 12 years. He has also been a part-time professor teaching ecology and conservation to general education students. But Rushforth has more on his resume than most deans. He is also a star in this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and one of a handful of locals that are acting or competing in the event.
Rushforth is an aquatic biologist that has made a life long pursuit of studying the curious one celled organism called the diatom. The diatom is unique because it produces most of the earth’s oxygen and has glass cell walls, which according to Rushforth make it “very ornate and beautiful.” Rushforth tracks the diatom in streams and fresh water lakes.
The reason that the diatom has drawn such attention is that although small, the diatom means something important. “They are good indicators of clean and polluted water,” said Rushforth. “You can tell a lot about the body of water if you can recognize the type of diatom.” So although the diatom itself won’t usually make you sick, the polluted water it resides in definitely can.
For 40 years, Rushforth has been tracking and studying the diatom across the U.S. But his recent studies have brought his focus on the Intermountain West, particularly Northern Utah. “There has not been much diatom work done in our part of the world,” said Rushforth. “It is an open field.”
Rushforth’s good friend, Chris Peters, is a filmmaker based out of California. “Chris is interested in people and their work, so he decided to do a profile on me,” said Rushforth. The friends filmed the documentary short film in one week at Strawberry and Deer Creek reservoir. The film depicts Rushforth in the heart of his studies, gathering samples from different water sources and then taking them back to his laboratory to examine.
Rushforth has not yet watched the completed film, but will go see it when it airs at the Sundance Film Festival where it will compete in the U.S. Short Film category. And in the meantime, Rushforth will continue to study the wetlands on the East shore of The Great Salt Lake in search of the diatom.
By Faith Heaton
Info Box: Sundance Film Festival
Jan. 19- Jan. 29. Screenings
Time Date Event Code Venue City Availability
4:00 pm 1/23/2012 FRONS23RA Redstone Cinema 7 Park City Waitlist Only
9:00 pm 1/24/2012 FRONS24WN Tower Theatre Salt Lake City Available
5:30 pm 1/25/2012 FRONS25PE Prospector Square Theatre Park City Available
6:15 pm 1/28/2012 FRONS282E Holiday Village Cinema 2 Park City Waitlist Only
Website for Film Festival: http://www.sundance.org/festival/
Neat article, great content–i like it.
Filmmakers and film-goers from around the world spend upwards of thousands of dollars to come and see maybe 7 or 8 films. Yet, we can’t cough up 15 bucks to drive 30 miles and participate in the biggest, most incredible media event of the year!
As consumer of media, we should ALL be rushing in to the theaters demanding to be thrilled, delighted, and informed by these incredible films.
Some people might think the films submitted are “low-budget”. While Sundance may include many films that are more enjoyed by those with a taste for the art of film, that is NOT what it is there for.
These filmmakers spend a lot of time and a lot of their own hard-earned money to express themselves and to make a film that can enjoyed the way it was meant to be. In other words, before some production company rips it to shreds and sands it down to fit some perfect template they’ve devised.