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"TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM," U.S. documentary competition: Morgan Neville, whose 2011 Sundance entry "Troubadours" centered on superstars such as James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell, now looks at the hired hands
-- backup singers whose oohs and aahs prop up the voices at center stage. What would music be without them? "It would be out of tune," Neville said. "Backup singers do a lot more than they get credit for, and particularly in the pop world, backup singers paper over a lot of mistakes when it comes to singing live. To me, it's also like a whole dimension of soul and call and response in a way. A single singer is telling a singular story, but when you have backup singers, it's a community, so you're dealing with a much different, more compelling dynamic." "CRYSTAL FAIRY," world dramatic competition: It's road-trip time for writer-director Sebastian Silva
-- who came to Sundance with 2009's "The Maid" and 2011's "Old Cats" and has a second festival film this time, the midnight chiller "Magic Magic." Silva's day-one premiere stars Michael Cera as a smug, judgmental American who invites a free spirit calling herself Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) on a mescaline quest through the Chilean desert, where he learns to shed his self-righteousness and she comes to accept her real self and leave the pixie behind. So the keys to happiness are drugs and travel? "Calling it a crowd-pleasing druggie road trip would be a very, very superficial take on it," Silva said. "'Crystal Fairy' is a great film for opening night, because it sort of lifts up your spirits. It's a really fresh experience, and I think it's a non-pretentious movie. But it's not necessarily a happy ending, things are not necessarily happy and joyful. But it feels very real, and you sort of learn to be compassionate yourself as you go through the movie." "WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL?", world documentary competition: First-time director Marc Silver and producer Gael Garcia Bernal dig into the mystery of a body found rotting in the Arizona desert, bearing a tattoo that reads "Dayani Cristal." Weaving between documentary segments and sequences featuring Bernal retracing the dangerous route many Mexicans take to reach the United States, they try to put a human face on a man who otherwise would have been another anonymous victim of the immigration battle. So who is Dayani Cristal? Something of an Everyman for millions who dream of a better life. "What that body in the desert told me is why leave people leave home, how dangerous the journey is," Silver said. "To rehumanize somebody who was dead and didn't have an identity, and by the end of the film, you know him and his family, that really is the heart of the film. It's a metaphor for many immigrants all over the planet." ___ Online:
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