The award-winning short Thompson, by Jason Tippet (Film/Video BFA 08), opens at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival today. The film, which is shown as part of the Documentary Showcase, is screening four times in Park City and twice in Salt Lake City.
The 10-minute doc follows two Newhall-area friends, Matt Thompson and Ryan Anders, who since the second grade “have shared the bond of speech impediments, weapons and things that go fast,” according to Tippet. But in their senior year of high school, their relationship goes through a rough patch as the pair “find that their go-carts, dirt bikes and radio-controlled cars can’t outrun adulthood.” The friends appear headed in different directions as Matt sets his sights on becoming a professional fisherman while Ryan is expelled from high school for calling in a bomb threat…
“Seeing Matt and Ryan in Jason’s documentary portrait, I loved them,” says CalArts faculty member Thom Andersen. “And I began to worry about their prospects in a society that can’t show them a productive end for their wonderful energy and curiosity.
“What more can you ask of a documentary movie?”
Thompson was directed and photographed by Tippet and produced by CalArts BFA colleague Elizabeth Mims.
Thompson received the Jury Award for Best Reel Short at the 2009 South by Southwest Festival. It was also an official selection of last summer’s Los Angeles Film Festival. Thompson is also screening this month at DocPoint, the Helsinki Documentary Film Festival.
Additional resources:
Students in Name Only – from Sundance Film Festival News