POLLYWOOD | MY SUNDANCE

The personal is political, and powerful, in the 2006 Sundance documentary line-up.

BY PATRICIA FINNERAN

What do Dan Glickman, Todd Purdham, John Podesta and Paris Hilton have in common? They were all at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, albeit for very different reasons. In a year when Sundance organizers vowed to get back to their independent roots, a powerful wind was blowing from the East, as Washington invaded Park City.
As the director of a documentary festival, I'm often asked "Why are documentaries so often the voice of the liberal left?" I want to answer "Why is talk radio the voice of the far right?" But that would be too glib. Documentary filmmakers look deeply into the compelling stories and complex issues that we face as global citizens and invite audiences to question the status quo. Some do it with an overt political agenda, others adhere to strict journalistic principles, still others tell stories of people - or penguins - that we relate to On a more emotional level. I am far less interested in the idea of left or right than in the effectiveness of the storytelling.

SUNDANCE 2006 presented some 40 new documentaries from all over the world: Indian expats in the U.K. ("I For India"); Neil Young in concert ("Heart of Gold") tourists at a concentration camp ("KZ") a musical documentary featuring female prisoners ("Songbirds"); a three hour meditation featuring monks in the French alps ("Into Great Silence"); and a few that delved into American politics such as an exploration of the African American vote in the 2000 election ("American Blackout") and a portrait of activist and accused election spoiler Ralph Nader ("An Unreasonable Man.")

Amid all the glamour, the big star at this year's festival was none other than Al Gore, whose presence and hot new film "An Inconvenient Truth," may have eclipsed press coverage of Jennifer Aniston's bag of schwag. The film, directed by native Washingtonian Davis Guggenheim (son of the late 4-time Academy Award winning Charles Guggenheim) and produced by Participant Productions, interweaves the story of Gore's life with his slide-show-on-steroids story of global warming.

But in the post-Michael Moore age, savvy documentary filmmakers have to go beyond left and right their work will be promptly dismissed by half their potential audience. "Black Gold" is a film about the global coffee trade, centering on the tireless leader of a coffee cooperative in Ethiopia who travels the globe seeking a fair price for the gourmet Arabica beans.This is a film that challenges the financial model of Starbucks®.When I look around my local Silver Spring Starbucks® in the morning, the folks waiting in line seems evenly red and blue; when it comes to coffee, it's all about the caffeine. The film's central point is that trade, not aid, would most benefit these community farmers who want to sell their coffee at a price that allows them to feed their families and send their children to school. The film goes from the New York commodities exchange to the worldwide coffee marketers convention to the WTO trade meetings. There's enough poverty and injustice to spread the blame all around, but the geopolitics and economics of the global coffee trade are too complex to offer a single villain.

That's not left or right, that's the power of the personal story to move people, to jolt us out of our sense of hopelessness. One man thinks, "Perhaps I can't solve the problems of agricultural subsidies and fair trade, but I can help these hard working farmers build a school for their children."

So while a few politicians and leading figures of the fourth. Estate donned parkas and snow boots in January, in a kind of reverse celebrity dance (remember that it was a big deal that actors came to the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner?) the movies that moved audiences were emotional, compelling and human. The power of documentary is that it makes the political, personal.