It's Sundance time!

This weekend sees the opening of the Sundance Film Festival, founded by Robert Redford, and held every year in Utah. When I went back in 2003 there was no cool documentary on the exploits of Banksy, and his fellow street artists.

"'The story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed,' is how Banksy describes 'Exit Through the Gift Shop'."



"Many here in Utah are already surely wondering, will the artist be in attendance?"

"'Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the Palestinian segregation wall in the West Bank,'" said the festival, in a description.

"Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is the story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur filmmaker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. Billed as ‘the world’s first street art disaster movie’ the film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists at work.”

"‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is one of those films that comes along once in a great while, a warped hybrid of reality and self -induced fiction while at the same time a totally entertaining experience,' said John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, in a statement. 'The story is so bizarre I began to question if it could even be real… but in the end I didn’t care. I feel bad I won’t be able to shake the filmmaker’s hand and tell him how much I love this film. I think I will shake everyone’s hand that day and hope I hit on Banksy somewhere. I love his work in all forms.'" Indiewire

The founder, Redford, told reporters that in recent years he has felt Sundance was "sliding" from its original vision because indie film began to mesh with studio movies. But Reuters noted that "In fact, some of the best indie films of recent years were products of divisions of Hollywood studios that worked in the arena for low-budget moviemaking. "Slumdog Millionaire," for instance, was originally backed by Warner Independent Pictures, a now defunct unit of Warner Bros."