Item Detail
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26545
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0
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0
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English
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Indie Mormon Cinema Attempts a Mainstream Conversion
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Irreantum
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Winter 2003/Spring 2004
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5
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4
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Orem, UT
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Association for Mormon Letters
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53-54
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"Sundance is no longer Utah's only indie-cinema foothold. In the past few years, the state has played host to an unprecedented surge in feature films made by Mormons, for Mormons, and set within the Mormon world. In the smut-pop age of raunchy teen comedies, a driven cadre of local companies is tapping a market for squeaky-clean entertainment, custom-made for the Mormons' own G-rated culture. In 2003, no fewer than six theatrical features made by Latter-day Saints directors, about LDS characters, had limited releases, mostly in Mormon-heavy Western states, according to LDS Film (ldsfilm.com, which also compiles data on well-known LDS filmmakers like Don Bluth and Neil LaBute). Mormon director Jared Hess's teen comedy, Napoleon Dynamite, premiered at Sundance last week. Now some producers are eyeing the mainstream, and C. Jay Cox's Latter Days, a film about gay Mormons that opens January 30 in New York, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City, is already courting controversy." [From the article]