Tales From Sundance

PARK CITY, Utah — Never mind that their films aren’t in competition, that their names won’t be mentioned when the Sundance Film Festival hands out its make-or-break awards. From different ends of the experience continuum, writer-directors Victor Nun~ez and Julie Davis are emblematic of both the struggles and the successes of independent filmmaking, and their presence here reaffirms why this event, the strains of its ever-increasing celebrity notwithstanding, continues to matter.

Nun~ez, of course, is the veteran--an independent legend who has won the grand prize at this festival twice, first with “Gal Young ‘Un” in 1979 and then with “Ruby in Paradise” in 1993. But though his “Ruby” star Ashley Judd went immediately to stardom and Bryan Singer, his co-winner in 1993, then directed the Oscar-winning “The Usual Suspects,” Nun~ez is still making films his way.

Davis, by contrast, is a beginning director whose first theatrical feature, “I Love You . . . Don’t Touch Me” ended up not in the competition but rather in the less prestigious American Spectrum section. And her professional life has been such a collection of unlikely career moves that she jokes that a story about it will become “The Loser Interview.” In fact the opposite is true, as the film she wrote, directed, produced and edited has unstoppable warmth and appeal.

Nun~ez’s accomplishment is even more impressive in a festival whose alienated, youthful filmmakers seem intent on proving that passion is no substitute for maturity and judgment. His “Ulee’s Gold,” Sundance’s Centerpiece Premiere scheduled for Wednesday night, stands out for its sureness, its quiet emotional force, and, as always, Nun~ez’s ability to find and nurture the mystery and the power in the events of an ordinary life.

Ulee Jackson (evocatively played by Peter Fonda) is a third-generation beekeeper--a stubborn, solitary man who lives with his two granddaughters because their mother has run off and their father, Ulee’s son, is in prison. Circumstances force Ulee to search for the girls’ mother, involving him with hard cases from his son’s past, turning the film into a unexpectedly moving meditation on redemption and the power of family.

A strong believer that “character, place and story have to be connected,” Nun~ez has firmly rooted this melodramatic tale in the swamps of north Florida and the mesmerizing and poetic routine of beekeeping. “What we are losing as a culture is an awareness of the miracle of everyday life,” he says. “I concentrate on what’s in front of the camera, not the camera itself.”

A soft-spoken, bear-like man who favors work shirts and jeans and means it when he says, “Just cut me off when I get boring,” Nun~ez rushed to get his film ready for Sundance because Orion, the closest to a Hollywood major he’s ever worked for asked him to.

Though he’s conscious of how much Sundance exposure has done for him in the past, Nun~ez feels that, “for me, Sundance has always been a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the recognition is wonderful. On the other, that sword has always pointed west, and festival success is the calling card to making it into the establishment world.”

It’s not that Victor Nun~ez hasn’t tried to play the Hollywood game. Unlikely as it seems, given the gentle, inward nature of his work, Nun~ez made repeated overtures toward the studio system, taking more lunches and meetings than he can count.

“My first two features were financed by grants, and I had the insecurity of not really believing that what I was doing made sense,” he explains. “I had done it, it had worked, but was it a fluke? I wanted to get real. Richard Jordan [the star of Nun~ez’s “A Flash of Green”] said my problem was I hadn’t decided to sleep with the devil. I said I would if I could find him.”

Even while he was taking all those meetings, Nun~ez, who operated his own camera as well as edited “Ulee,” knew that it would be “tricky” to get a studio to allow the kind of situation he found essential for filming: “A small, devoted crew with everyone getting involved. I really believed the process, the way a film is made, is incredibly important and I want to control that.”

Finally, as he’d done so often before (he used to joke that his camera would break if he took it across the state line), Nun~ez returned to his native Florida to shoot “Ulee’s Gold” as he had all his other features. “I always go back to what I sort of know,” he says. “But now that I’ve gone into the swamps of north Florida, I’ve gone as deep into Florida as I can. I don’t know what I can do there next. Maybe Disney World.”

Though there is more than 20 years’ difference in their ages, Julie Davis of “I Love You . . . Don’t Touch Me” also went to what she knows in her story of a young woman determined to find sex and love in the same man. Is the film autobiographical? “Can’t you tell?” the lively, engaging Davis says with a smile. “Let’s say it’s autobiographical in spirit.”

Unable to get production-assistant work as a 21-year-old graduate of Dartmouth just moved to L.A., Davis started in the movie business as an extra. “I didn’t know anyone, but my goal was just to get on a set and learn,” she says.

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Undeterred by being turned down twice for the American Film Institute directing program (“If you’re going to let a committee tell you what to do with your life, you shouldn’t be wanting to direct”), Davis went instead as part of AFI’s then-new editing program. Her first job after she got out was editing low-budget action movies with names like “Flight to Danger” shot on 8mm stock for the Korean video market. “I was offered $750 to edit a 90-minute movie,” she remembers, “and I couldn’t have been more excited if I’d been offered a $10-million movie to direct.”

Davis’ next job was more problematic. Hired as senior producer of on-air promotions by the Playboy Channel, Davis cut the promos for the channel’s movies and sometimes had to work with hard-core films that were being cut down to soft. “With my personal conflicts about wanting love and sex to be together, that stuff sent me over the edge. On a visceral level I was confronted and challenged,” she says. More than that, she found herself “inspired” to work on the script that became “I Love You.” The filming of “I Love You” involved considerable effort, including the sale of a grandmother’s diamond ring (“She would have been proud of me”) to help finance the shoot.

Even more heroics were necessary when the production ran out of money after a rough cut was made. Co-star Meredith Scott Lynn, whom Davis hadn’t known until she read for the film, “came in like this ball of fire and became my angel,” raising the money to finish the picture and ending up as executive producer. And if that isn’t a winning story, this film festival has yet to see one.