Kevin was on The Sundance Channel last night giving out the prize for best feature film director in the drama category. The first thing he does is thank his wife, Jennifer for being there. He then responds to the crowd, ‘ I am getting so laid tonight”. He then does a little banter about Redford and announces that Bob has sent him a note to read. He opens an envelope and says something to the effect of ‘dear Kid’, he pauses and announces to the audience that he calls Redford Butch and that Redford calls Kev Kid. He then reads on to an All The President’s Men reference and says something like ‘I was much better than Dustin’. Of course the audience was laughing hysterically at this point. He then finishes the letter by saying, “P.S., fuck Slamdance!”, this line brought the house down. He then starts to talk about the selection process and goes into a bit about dividing into shirts and skins and having a steel cage wrestling match to decide. He talks about how it came down to him and Janet Maslin (Kev being the shirt and Janet being the skin) and that she kicked his ass. Real funny stuff. He then read the award. After the acceptance speech by the winning director (a humorless Karyn Kumasa who corrected Kev’s pronunciation of her name) the person who runs Sundance with Redford got back up to the podium and said, with a smile, “Thanks Kev”. All in all it was a very funny moment. I may not have all the quotes down exactly because me an my wife were having laughing fits, but it is pretty close.

We’re so used to viewing this as a world for first-time filmmakers, which it still is,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, the festival’s co-director and head of programming. But the surge in returning filmmakers shows independent film is “a world that’s full of new filmmakers and also a maturing range of filmmakers that in many ways are due to make their best films.”

Gilmore cited Kevin Smith, who came to Sundance with his first film “Clerks” in 1994 (and is a juror in this year’s dramatic competition). Five years and three films later, Gilmore said, ” ‘Dogma’ is the best film that Kevin Smith ever made, by a pretty good jump. . . . There is very definitely a learning cycle here, where people make features, come back, and make something that has more depth to it.”