February 2, 2000

The Sixth Annual Slamdance Film Festival began with the near arrest of a participating filmmaker. Iranian refugee Farhad Yawari, maker of "Dolphins," was handcuffed and came close to spending his trip to Park City on the wrong side of cell bars for "intent to solicit business." A new city ordinance this year attempts to ban handbills, flyers, or other advertising materials from being handed to passersby, or placing them on cars, buildings or sign posts.

...The threat of legal trouble had little impact on the rest of the event and spirits at Slamdance remained high among filmmakers, festival attendees and staff for the remainder of the week...

Early evening happy hours allowed for performances supporting several special programs at the fest. A punk rock party helped launch the festival's new web-based Anarchy shorts competition that will continue through out the year. Anarchy director Shane Kuhn reported nearly 1 million hits to Slamdance.com during the festival week. The Bare Naked Ladies participated in Slamdance karaoke following the screening of Jason Priestly's "Barenaked In America" and singer songwriter Amy Cook performed in support of "Amargosa," the documentary by Todd Robinson looking at seventy-six year-old dancer Marta Becket...

Despite efforts by some Park City officials to prevent Slamdance and its offspring from occurring, the festival's sixth year not only went ahead as planned, but was also a definite success. The friendly and supportive atmosphere of Slamdance makes it a much-needed compliment to Park City's other festival. Slamdance is the scruffy kid brother that reminds us that his big brother was a rebel once too...

Here is the link for this story: indieWIRE.com