Humanoids From Greenland, Lying About Pat Tillman and Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Abortion Debate!

PARK CITY, Utah -- So, we are midway through the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, the snow keeps falling and some sense of decorum and civilized behavior has returned to Park City. Most of the sharks and agents have hightailed it back to Los Angeles. Most of us indie filmmakers have had our premieres, hawked our movies, jockeyed for press, scoured the inter-web for reviews and congratulated each other on a job well done. Now its time to mingle.

Wednesday night, the directors of all the films got together to knock a few back and celebrate just making it this far. Intriguing characters from far-flung lands eagerly cross-pollinated. The very rugged, whale-blood-drinking crew from "Nummioq," the first ever feature produced in Greenland, intermingled with the diminutive star from India's "Peepli Live," and glimmers of a glorious and friendly international utopian world order shone . . . if only for a moment.

Earlier in the day, before our second public screening of "12th & Delaware," we were able to catch Amir bar Lev's touching doc "The Tillman Story," the disturbing tale of a charming young man who left his lucrative football career with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army, only to be killed in a messy friendly-fire incident. The terrible accident, a result of trigger-happy comrades in Tillman's own unit, was covered up at the highest levels of the U.S. military, until Tillman's dogged and grieving mother uncovered the ugly business. The film is an infuriating look at a family who watched their son be lionized by a country in need of heroes in a time when few can be found. The audience aches for Tillman's mother, aches for the young soldiers who were lost in the fog of war and are left to make sense of the loss of their fearless leader and friend.

How does one talk about abortion without being labeled pro-life or pro-choice? The task, we can report, is almost impossible, as we navigate the media waters regarding our latest film, "12th & Delaware." It seems that most reporters and critics are eager to throw us quickly into either camp, assign us with lazy slogans created years ago by marketing mavens and politicians. Deaf or blind? Sweet or salty? Abortion or life? That's it? Can't we deepen the discussion, people?

Our film focuses on women in the throes of deciding whether to abort or continue with their pregnancy, and those who would attempt to influence that decision. We have tried to leave the movie in the hands of the girls we feature, their words, their expressions, their deeply conflicted feelings. Still, many in the press just want the revert to the quick-and-easy "which side are you on?" pigeonholing. It's slightly deflating, but we will continue to point out the nuance and grays in a debate that seems stuck on a black-and-white canvas.