Slamdance turns 15, as feisty as ever

January 13, 2009 "Could you actually call us a festival in year one?" Baxter jokes of the slipshod event, conceived as a venue for films that were overlooked by its more mainstream namesake. The festival that was initially told by the Park City chief of police that its days were numbered now offers a year-round filmmaker program supported by six full-time employees and 40 volunteer programrs who screen more than 3,000 annual submissions from first-time directors working on budgets of less than $1 million. [...] Seth Gordon's 2007 Slamdance documentary "The King of Kong" led to a studio job directing the holiday hit "Four Christmases."

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