Park City '06 Buzz 
"Stephanie Daley" Draws a Crowd of Buyers

The world premiere of writer/director Hilary Brougher's Sundance dramatic competition feature "Stephanie Daley" brought quite a crowd to the Racquet Club in Park City Saturday evening. The queue for ticket holders was long, and the holding area for people with Red Passes (typically buyers and some press) had acquisition execs and some company heads from nearly every indie/specialty distributor in the U.S. Red Pass holders entered the large screening space first, and probably not surprisingly, the venue became quite a schmooze fest as the rest of the crowd made its way inside.

Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore introduced the film and Brougher, who did further introductions, including members of her cast. The film's headlining star/executive producer Tilda Swinton was absent (currently working on a film in New York) but fellow stars Amber Tamblyn ("The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants") and several others joined the screening. The film is the story of a psychologist (Swinton) hired by a prosecutor to evaluate Stephanie Daley's (Tamblyn) competency hearing in which high school girl Stephanie is accused of killing her baby shortly after giving birth during a school ski trip. An informal poll among attendees after the screening was somewhat mixed, with near universal praise for the performances.

"I tried to build a film around cycles," said Brougher about the film. "The story started with Stephanie's story. By the ending, (I was trying to) take the two women to a place where they are really beginning their journey."

indiewire.com by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE (January 22, 2006)