On the center screen, a man sits behind the wheel of a car. Simultaneously, on a narrower screen to the left, the landscape blurs in retreat. And on another screen to the right is a close-up of the dashboard.

The big idea yesterday at the “Power of Story: The Big Idea” panel, presented by TimeWarner and Sundance Institute, was collaboration: how it works and why it’s necessary in filmmaking. But the panel also revealed that a smart filmmaker isn’t threatened by working with other creative people; it’s possible to hold fast to your vision while inviting in ideas from others. Boys Don’t Cry filmmaker Kimberly Peirce started things off with an emotional wallop by screening a rape scene from that now-iconic film.

** MEDIA ALERT **
WHAT: Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have announced Cherien Dabis, director of May in the Summer, as winner of the 2011 Sundance / NHK International Filmmaker Award.
Originally created to celebrate 100 years of Cinema, the annual award recognizes and supports a visionary filmmaker on his or her next film. Sundance Institute staff works closely with the winner throughout the year, providing creative and strategic support through the development, financing and production of their films.

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute today announced that Another Earth, directed and written by Mike Cahill and written by Brit Marling, is the recipient of the 2011 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Now in its ninth year, the Prize carries a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P.

If she were American rather than Danish, Susanne Bier would likely be one of the more recognizable filmmakers in the world. She specializes in emotionally gripping, character-based dramas that manage to be both accessible and aesthetically accomplished. Pigeonholed in the American arthouse, she’s really making stories for the masses.

One of the best things about the Off Screen program at the Sundance Film Festival is that you never know what might happen when some new combination of people get together and start talking. This is true of the Cinema Cafe series, where the casual setting creates all sort of moments of unexpected insight and fun. This was especially true for your humble correspondent on Tuesday morning, when I found myself sharing a stage with Kevin Clash, puppeteer and subject of Festival documentary Being Elmo, and Phil Shane, co-director of the same.

Based on the collaborations of director Jesse Peretz and writer Evgenia Peretz, the sibling-centered film My Idiot Brother takes brother-sister dynamics to every extreme. When Ned (Paul Rudd) is released from prison, his three sisters (Emily Mortimer, Elizabeth Banks, and Zooey Deschanel) take turns letting him crash at their place. The comedy really shines with Ned’s candid, trusting attitude.

Israeli filmmaker Yossi Madmoni brings the powerful portrait of familial conflict Restoration to the Festival this year, demonstrating deft directorial skills and a filmmaker to watch in the future. The film, written by Erez Kav-El, tells the story of an antiques dealer dedicated to restoring old furniture who gains a new apprentice while at the same time is losing his son. Screening in the World Cinema Dramatic competition, Restoration is at once a very specific story and a new take on classic themes of generational strife, and Madmoni’s graceful attention to the nuances of performance creates a film of surprising impact.

Don’t bother confining Yi Zhou to a single artistic medium. The young Chinese artist considers the collision of art forms essential to conveying the surreal landscapes presented in her work. Her 2011 Festival short, The Greatness, is featured in this year’s Animation Showcase and fuses 3-D animation with sculpture and film to take the audience on a computer-generated voyage inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

David Mackenzie’s apocalyptic romance, Perfect Sense, is a sensuous experiment in sensory deprivation. A mysterious virus provokes a wave of sadness in its victims, followed by the permanent loss of the sense of smell. The condition confounds doctors and scientists, including a beautiful epidemiologist named Susan (Eva Green), and makes life difficult for master chef Michael (Ewan MacGregor).

It’s the Wednesday of the Festival. This is when most of us filmmakers relax. Our films have all screened.

What makes a film independent? Its financing? The edginess of the director’s vision? However you define indie film, the notion of being an outsider – because of a film’s content, or its production outside the studio system – is common to almost everyone’s definition of indie film, as Emanuel Levy points out in his 1999 book Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film. But a number of movies in this year’s Festival lineup, in addition to being indie films, feature outsiders as characters, or the filmmakers are outsiders to the material they’re covering.
Take Matthew Bate, the Australian director of Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure, which is screening in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Sundance may be synonymous with American independent cinema, but in recent years the Institute has made far-ranging commitments to going global. The inaugural recipients of the Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award were announced on Tuesday at the Sundance House Presented by HP at Kimball Arts Center, drawing mid-Festival fanfare for an ambitious partnership between the American nonprofit and one of India’s largest corporations. “We’re always looking to discover more about the world through film, and where the film communities are flourishing,” said Alesia Weston, associate director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.

Animator David OReilly isn’t exactly a new kid on the block. Sure, he’s considered up-and-coming, and his 1985 birth year doesn’t exactly qualify him as an age-old veteran. But instead of resting on his laurels after his 2010 short Please Say Something—which screened at the 2010 Festival, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, among others—he’s hit the ground running with another edgy, twisted, hysterical follow-up venture, The External World, and has graduated quickly from the moniker of “kid” to something a bit more seasoned .