The Sundance Film Festival, which runs January 21-31 in Park City, Utah, will honor participating Israeli filmmakers in an event called 'Shabbat at Sundance' to be held on January 29. The Sundance Institute (which helps filmmakers develop their movies) and local Jewish leaders will fete Israeli directors Yael Hersonski and Yasmine Novak, whose films are competing this year at Sundance, the premiere showcase in the world for independently made films. Hersonski's documentary, A Film Unfinished, is an exploration of the infamous 62 minutes of film footage the Nazis filmed in the Warsaw Ghetto shortly before it was liquidated. Hersonski explored what was really happening in each frame. She came to the conclusion that although some of the film is clearly staged, the portions that were once thought to be true documentary footage are actually carefully scripted, and their participants coerced into participating. Novak's short film, Bus, looks at the complex intersections between the Israeli and Palestinian bus networks. Israeli films are regularly featured at Sundance and Dror Shaul's Sweet Mud won the World Cinema Competition there in 2007.
