The weather was unusually warm, which was unfortunate for the skiers but perfect for navigating one's way to the multiple screenings and parties at the 17th annual Sundance Film Festival. More than 20,000 people flocked to Park City, Utah, for the 11-day event. When you add the concurrent festivals (Slamdance and others) and mix in thousands of Utah area teens hoping for a star sighting, you have something akin to a Bourbon Street of film mayhem. It wasn't unusual to hear about simultaneous films, panels, parties and other shindigs taking place from 8 a.m. until, well, 8 a.m. I decided to experience a little of each. Friday, Jan. 17I start my screenings with The Mudge Boy by Michael Burke, and it reflects a recurrent Sundance theme — dysfunctional families and quirky characters trying to find their way in the world. Duncan (Emile Hirsch) loses his mother and copes by wearing her clothes and bonding with a chicken, all to the consternation of his father. Next up is The Baroness and the Pig (director Michael Mackenzie), in which a wealthy matron (Patricia Clarkson, who appears in four Sundance films this year and wins a Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Performance) takes in a girl raised by pigs and "presents" her to a dinner party. While the film raises interesting issues, such as what constitutes being human and civilized, the film is marred by Theme Two of Sundance — poor picture quality in digital features.

I spend the remainder of the evening at a few film parties, including a party for Milk & Honey, where I witness the first of several physical fights. These people take films seriously.

Saturday, Jan. 18The fight intrigues me, so I start the weekend at 8:30 a.m. with a screening of Joe Maggio's Milk & Honey, a story of the disintegration of a relationship in which a husband stops taking his anxiety medication and his wife has an affair with a young man who looks like her last boyfriend. The relationship may be dysfunctional but the performances are stellar, capturing elements of love, life and fate rarely conveyed with such emotional honesty and humor. This film also marks Sundance Trend Three — the rise of the sophomore class. Maggio's first film, Virgil Bliss, was rejected by Sundance but played Slamdance and won Best Narrative at the Atlanta Film Festival. Its showing should give hope to those filmmakers whose debut efforts are snubbed.

Sunday, Jan. 19Sunday morning is a rude awakening after the previous night's festivities, but the highlight is Dot the I, starring Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien) in an English-speaking role about a love affair that blurs the lines between reality and reality-TV. Die Mommie Die, a twisted but fun little film about an ex-pop singer, pleases the crowds and then throws an after-party lacking any pretension, a rarity for Sundance. But I wrap up the evening at a condo-party thrown by an indie producer and witness my second film fight, this time between two women.

Monday, Jan. 20One of the most talked about films this year is Pieces of April (director Peter Hedges), a decent-looking digital feature/comedy starring Katie Holmes as April, a daughter estranged from her family. She invites the family to visit her for a Thanksgiving meal, and when her oven dies, she turns to her neighbors for help, or lack of it.

In The Cooler (director Wayne Kramer), William H. Macy gives another brilliant performance as Bernie Lootz, a man whose luck is so bad, a casino pays him to sit next to hot players to cool them off. There are many parties wrapping up the night, but nearly everyone seems to be at the Independent Film Channel party at Ciseros in celebration of Pieces of April and other IFC films.

Tuesday , Jan. 21Documentaries are a large focus at Sundance, with an entire venue, the House of Docs, devoted to documentary art. Today I watch The Weather Underground, by Seth Green and Bill Siegel, telling the story of a band of radicals in the 1960s who hoped to bring the war home and overthrow the government; the film is even more interesting in light of current terrorist activities. I spend the rest of the afternoon at the House of Docs, meeting filmmakers and distributors and listening to part of a panel on the state of the activist documentary in today's political environment. Then it's off to the Sundance Channel party, where I witness a mob scene in the gift bag line, and for good reason — the Kenneth Cole gift bags contain more than $500 worth of goodies. More parties abound, but I've caught the Sundance flu and head in early.

Wednesday, Jan. 22Even with a flu, I have to catch at least one film and Bukowski: Born Into This fits well with my mixture of cold, hangover and Chinaski-esque voice. Director John Dullaghan interviews old friends of author Charles Bukowski, stars like Sean Penn and publisher Jim Martin, and then lets Bukowski have his own say as well, revealing an insecure, tender and loving man underneath his hardened poetry and sometimes caustic public presence.

Thursday, Jan. 23Miramax announces at 5 a.m. that they have purchased rights to Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent, so I begin my morning with this wonderful film. Train-enthusiast Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage) is 4-feet, 5-inches tall, and he just wants to be alone. When he inherits an old train station in New Jersey, he finds himself in the company of two other loners (including Ms. Sundance, Patricia Clarkson), and they find solace in being alone together.

David Gordon Green, another sophomore filmmaker whose first film, George Washington, was rejected by Sundance, wins a Special Jury Prize for Drama with his new feature, All The Real Girls, which becomes the must-see movie of the festival. The film is a brilliant step forward with its mix of romance and brooding, Terrence Mallick-esque cinematography.

After-parties for the evening include Fuji/Technicolor's mountaintop bash featuring palm-readers, massages (I get two), manicures and great food. It's spoiled by those two evil words of any party: cash bar. So my group heads to a De La Soul party, just missing Sigur Ros, and finishes the evening with an excellent party thrown by United Artists at Wahso, where the booze and excellent Japanese cuisine (in Utah!) are free.

Friday, Jan. 24Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves to be recognized as the king of Sundance as he turns in another stellar performance in Owning Mahowny. He re-creates the real-life story of a bank manager in Toronto who manages to steal more than $10.5-million over two years before being caught. By then, he's penniless, however, as he's an out-of-control gambler who, in a flurry of flights between Toronto, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, has lost nearly three times that amount.

American Splendor wins the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature, and it's my favorite film of the festival. Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, American Splendor follows the life story of legendary underground comic writer Harvey Pekar, whose comics by the same name (illustrated by Robert Crumb, among others) earned him fame, not fortune. The film is nearly flawless, combining animation, great acting by Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis, and documentary footage of the real-life characters. It's a self-deconstructing picture that explores Pekar's brilliant analysis of life's smaller foibles.

Saturday/Sunday, Jan. 25 and 26An 8:30 a.m. screening of Baltasar Kornakur's The Sea is intense for the early hour. It focuses on an Icelandic family whose father has summoned them home to determine the fate of the family fishing business. Addressing issues central to Iceland and the world — the effects of immigration, the changing nature of the working class, the sense of community in small towns — The Sea has beautiful cinematography and harrowing performances that seemingly capture the bitter cold of the country.

Unfortunately, my remaining films are not as good and I skip out of two movies early, hook up with a distribution executive for lunch and join a small group at the condo to watch the Awards Celebration in Super Bowl style. The official after-party at the Silvermine is nestled in the hills of Park City and is attended by nearly all of the winning filmmakers, but after a few minutes we decide to leave for quieter quarters to talk about the films … until 4 a.m. Having seen about 30 films in 10 days, I make the wise choice to sleep for three hours before returning home.

Brian Newman is executive director of the Image Film & Video Center.

2003 Sundance Film Festival Awards:

Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature American Splendor by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Capturing The Friedmans by Andrew Jarecki

Jury Prize for Dramatic Directing Thirteen by Catherine Hardwicke

Jury Prize for Documentary Directing My Flesh and Blood by Jonathan Karsch

Jury Prize for Screenwriting The Station Agent by Tom McCarthy (screenwriter and director)

Special Jury Prizes for Drama All the Real Girls by David Gordon Green and What Alice Found by A. Dean Bell

Special Jury Prizes for Documentary A Certain Kind of Death by Glover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh and The Murder of Emmett Till by Stanley Nelson

Special Jury Prizes for Dramatic Performance Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent, All the Real Girls, The Baroness and the Pig and Pieces of April) and Charles Busch (Die Mommie Die)

World-Cinema Audience Award Whale Rider by Niki Caro

Dramatic Audience Award The Station Agent by Tom McCarthy

Documentary Audience Award My Flesh and Blood by Jonathan Karsch

Alfred P. Sloan Award Dopamine by Mark Decena

Short Film Jury Award Terminal Bar by Stefan Nadelman

Jury Prize for Dramatic Cinematography Quattro Noza Derek Cianfrance (director Joey Curtis)

Jury Prize for Documentary Cinematography Stevie Dana Cupper, Gordon Quinn and Peter Gilbert (director Steve James)

Freedom of Expression Award for Documentary What I Want My Words to Do For You by Judith Katz, Madeleine Gavin and Gary Sunshine

This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2003.