Sundance festival roster announced

Unveiling its usual lineup of eclectic independent American films, the Sundance Film Festival also is emphasizing its strategic position as the first major festival on the calendar with an increased focus on international films.

Don Roos’ “Happy Endings” will be the opening-night film Jan. 20 in Park City, Utah. The latest effort from the director of “The Opposite of Sex” stars Lisa Kudrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Tom Arnold.

The next night in Salt Lake City will feature the world premiere of “On a Clear Day,” directed by U.K. director Gaby Dellal and starring Peter Mullan and Brenda Blethyn. Screening midfestival will be the world premiere of “Lackawanna Blues,” directed by George C. Wolfe and written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The ensemble cast features S. Epatha Merkerson, Terrence Howard, Jimmy Smits and Macy Gray.

Other premieres include Rebecca Miller’s “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” one of many festival selections dealing with issues of family and intimacy; “The Girl From Monday,” Hal Hartley’s comedy-drama that envisions a future in which citizens are traded as property on the stock exchange; “Inside Deep Throat,” from directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, a documentary that examines the social legacy of the notorious porn film.

Additional premieres include “Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School,” directed by Randall Miller and written by Miller and Jody Savin, and “The Upside of Anger,” written and directed by Mike Binder.

Movies screening in the American Spectrum lineup of dramatic and documentary films from emerging filmmakers include “212” from writer-director Anthony Ng, “Duane Hopwood” from writer-director Matt Mulhern, the documentary “Rise” from David LaChapelle about a dance movement rising out of South Los Angeles, and “The Salon,” written and directed by Mark Brown, about a woman struggling to save her business from the Department of Water and Power.

Midnight screenings include Michael Winterbottom’s “9 Songs” about two lovers who meet for sexual encounters between rock concerts, and “What Is It?” from Crispin Glover.

Sundance veterans Naomi Watts, Laura Linney and Patricia Clarkson are returning with new movies, and organizers announced 16 titles each in the competitions for independent American dramas, U.S. documentaries and world-cinema dramatic features, plus 12 entries for world-cinema documentaries. The festival runs through Jan. 30.

Keanu Reeves headlines the cast list among the dramatic competition, playing a dentist in writer-director Mike Mills’ “Thumbsucker,” about a boy struggling to break an oral fixation for his thumb.

Watts, who costarred in last year’s dramatic entry “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” stars in writer-director Scott Coffey’s “Ellie Parker,” a comic tale of a budding Hollywood actress.

Linney, star of past Sundance grand prize winner “You Can Count on Me,” appears in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale,” a divorce drama set in 1980s Brooklyn. Jeff Daniels costars.

Clarkson, whose Sundance films have included “The Station Agent” and “Pieces of April,” appears in writer-director Craig Lucas’ “Dying Gaul,” costarring Peter Sarsgaard in the tale of a screenwriter in a three-way relationship with a movie executive and his wife.

Also among dramatic contenders is “Lonesome Jim,” directed by Steve Buscemi, about a 27-year-old man who moves back to his dysfunctional parents’ home after failing to make it on his own. The film stars Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler.

The documentary competition includes “Why We Fight,” a study of the forces behind the Iraqi war and American militarism from director Eugene Jarecki; “Enron: Rise and Fall,” Alex Gibney’s exploration of the corporate giant brought down by scandals; “Frozen Angels,” an examination of scientific and social ramifications of human-reproduction research, from filmmakers Eric Black and Frauke Sandig; and Ellen Perry’s “The Fall of Fujimori,” a chronicle of the former Peruvian president.

Among films in the world cinema dramatic competition are John Leguizamo in “Cronicas,” about a Miami reporter tracking a serial killer in Ecuador; Peter Mullan and Brenda Blethyn in “On a Clear Day,” following a man’s attempt to swim the English Channel; and “Brothers,” featuring Connie Nielsen in a story of a family coping with a husband’s dispatch to war in Afghanistan.

World-cinema documentaries include Pirjo Honkasalo’s “The 3 Rooms of Melancholia,” which probes the conflict in Chechnya; Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man,” about bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, mauled to death by a grizzly in Alaska in 2003; and Sean McAllister’s “The Liberace of Baghdad,” about a famed Iraqi pianist holed up in a hotel while awaiting an American visa.