PARK CITY, Utah (Map, News) - Kick the Cannes, it’s French anyhow. Hollywood is out, the writers are on strike. If you wanted movies, then this was the place to be for independent-film freaks, thanks to the Sundance Film Festival, which wrapped up its 11-day run Sunday.

It was also the place where many with Baltimore ties jumped into the bright lights of the big screen. Producer and director Barry Levinson, who gained fame with such Baltimore-themed movies as “Diner,” “Tin Men” and “Liberty Heights,” unveiled his latest film, starring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis and Sean Penn. Football’s Modell family — known around Charm City as the architects of the Ravens’ 2001 Super Bowl championship — showed that it knows how to rock with one of the world’s most famous bands — U2. And local publishing giant Agora went Hollywood with a riveting documentary about debt in the United States. And it all happened in this otherwise sleepy former mining town.

No guarantee for success

As it has for more than 20 years, Park City — population 8,000 — wakes up once a year like Brigadoon and celebrates cinema — independent cinema. No big studio budgets, giant car chases or insane special effects. Sundance films focus on characters, tell unusual stories and often have a more international flavor than top box-office hits.

But make no mistake about it, Sundance is still Hollywood. This small town swells to 50,000 people. Celebrities roam the streets. Opening night is magical. John Modell, producer of “U2 3D” — the groundbreaking concert film — put it in true Baltimore terms. “Premiering a film at Sundance is like the film version of the Super Bowl,” he said, his Super Bowl XXXV ring underlining the point.

Only, if you make it to the Super Bowl, your work is nearly done. At Sundance, it’s just beginning.

Sundance has its origins in 1978, but it hit the big time when Robert Redford and his Sundance Institute took over in 1985. The growth of indie films then spread to the mainstream and took Sundance with it. Some of the movies even hit it big. Recent successes include Oscar winner “Hustle & Flow” as well as “Maria Full of Grace” and the popular documentary “Murderball.”

For every hit, however, dozens of films never make it to theaters, or they take a long time doing so.

John Cusack’s “Grace Is Gone,” the audience favorite in 2007, isn’t in theaters or even on DVD. But that doesn’t stop anyone. The event gives artists a chance to wish upon a star.

For this year’s competition, there was a lot of wishing. Sundance screened 121 feature-length films, including 87 world premieres. The odds of being selected weren’t good. Those 121 films represented just 3 percent of the 3,624 feature-film submissions.

It helps that these are movies that actors want to be in. They take on the roles because they either love the script, adore the characters or just want to help a young artist get a big boost — with “no lawyers, no agents,” said Willis, who stars in Levinson’s “What Just Happened?” “It’s funny having actors just say, ‘Hey, I’m willing to work for not much money just because I want to do it.’ That to me is a real independent spirit.”

And you never know who will crop up. At this year’s festival, there were many surprises. The kindly old man telling video store clerks to find love in “Good Dick” turned out to be Charles Durning. Ben Kingsley donned the role of a tough Russian policeman in “Transsiberian.” The overdone high school principal in “Assassination of a High School President” was none other than Willis, who also played an overdone version of himself — complete with beard — in “What Just Happened?”

But for all the art, Sundance is still about the money — “an alternative to the studio system,” Levinson called it. Directors, writers and actors all want to know whether a major company is going to distribute their films. That’s the true mother lode this mining town now digs. After a screening of the Woody Harrelson thriller “Transsiberian,” a question-and-answer session summed it up best.

“I just want to know about distribution,” one man in the audience said.

“So do I,” screenwriter Will Conroy responded.

A changing technology

Music is always a big part of the festival. Concert venues filled the town this year, and several films celebrated the music industry — “U2 3D,” “CSNY Deja Vu,” about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” featuring punk queen Smith, who also performed live.

The U2 film goes beyond the 1988 “Rattle and Hum” and created a buzz all its own. But that had nothing to do with the incredible effects in the movie — new, advanced, 3-D technology that has to be seen to be believed. Traveling around the world filming U2 made all the difference. This was not a one-show shoot.

Modell described fans at a concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in almost religious terms. “They were crying, like literally this is a spiritual revival.” And that, according to Modell, was what they tried to put on “U2 3D.” “Wow,” Modell thought at the time. “If we can catch just a little of this on film, it’s going to be really interesting.”

To capture that fan experience, Modell and the rest of the crew invented new cameras with new uses for lenses and new software. It was an “entirely new genre of film,” Modell said. The director —Catherine Owens — “approached the 3D film as a piece of sculpture,” said Modell. Her demands kept pushing the technology into new, exciting territory.

The result is a concert film that even impressed the band. “One of them said [after viewing it], ‘I’ve never been to one of our shows before,’ ”Modell said.

The filmmakers at Sundance always look to write their own tickets, along with the occasional scripts. Technology, digital cameras, the Internet and YouTube make that easier and more complicated at the same time. Wannabe directors have many more options but now compete in a rapidly growing — and global — movie environment.

“I think we’re looking at the worst of times, the best of times,” Levinson said.

Next year, someone probably will do a film about it.

Indies are headed our way

If you want a taste of Sundance without all the snow, look no further than the Maryland Film Festival, which is scheduled for May 1 through 4 at theaters throughout the area. It will be anchored at The Charles.

The Maryland festival sent “five or six people” to Park City, Utah, to scout Sundance for films, according to director Jed Dietz, who added that Maryland has a strong history of working with Sundance. “We’ve been supporting one person each year with a Maryland Filmmaker’s Fellowship,” he said.

The 1999 award, for example, went to director Rodrigo Garcia for “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her.” Garcia went on to direct for “The Sopranos,” “Big Love” and “Six Feet Under.”

For information, visit www.md-filmfest.com.

Sundance, hon

Here are five Baltimore-related films that were screened at the Sundance Film Festival:

» “What Just Happened?” – Baltimore’s own Barry Levinson, as director, serves up an indie comedy about, what else, the movie business. With Robert De Niro and Bruce Willis, this film tells an all-too-real tale of Tinseltown. Every minute is filled with the artifacts of the industry: ex-wives, crazy agents and lots and lots of money.

» “U2 3D” – Take a dose of one of the world’s most popular rock bands, a measure of the electricity of front man Bono, add high-tech 3-D effects and the business acumen of the Modell family, and you get a concert-filmgoer’s dream.

» “I.O.U.S.A.” – Not exactly an upbeat way to spend a couple of hours, but this is a compelling documentary about America and debt. Screenwriter and producer Addison Wiggin is better known as one of the brain trusts behind Baltimore’s publishing juggernaut Agora.

» “Henry Poole Is Here” – If you don’t know the name Mark Pellington, how about his dad, legendary Baltimore Colts linebacker Bill Pellington? Mark is a Baltimore native who won an MTV Video Music Award (in 1993 for Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”) and already has the film “Arlington Road” on his resume. In his latest effort, actor Luke Wilson struggles to find meaning in everyday life.

» “Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)” – Director Ellen Kuras is no stranger to Baltimore. The famed cinematographer hosted a screening of a previous film, “Personal Velocity: Three Portraits,” as part of the Maryland Film Festival’s Maryland Institute College of Art series. This time, it’s her directorial debut in a film about Laotian immigrants coming to America.