The 2010 Sundance Film Festival starts today and the New York Times had a nice piece on it today entitled New Director Seeks to Put the Indie Back in Sundance. We've heard that before but, given today's economic environment, maybe it'll have to be true this year out of sheer necessity.  We're optimistic and like the new "Next" initiative launching this year for "low-or-no-budget" films.

John Cooper takes over as the festival's new director and he seems to be infusing new Indie light into the line-up. Gone is the pseudo-indie, single opening-night movie, and taking its place is a shorts program and two features: the partly animated HOWL about a young Alan Ginsberg, and RESTREPO, a documentary about the war in Afghanistan.

Per the NYT's article, "Many people think the only way to resuscitate the indie sector is to make it more of a laboratory again -- to un-nest it from the overtly commercial motion picture business." Sounds good and this year's "Next" initiative is a good step in the direction of art over commerce.

Around last year's Sundance Festival, we wrote on this blog about The Top-10 Tips for Surviving Sundance, and were also able to score an Interview with Destin Cretton of SHORT-TERM 12, the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at last year's festival.