Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore announced the lineup of films that will be screening at the 2007 festival today, and said that choosing the 64 films that will appear in the four competition categories (dramatic, documentary, world cinema dramatic and world cinema documentary) was harder this year than ever before. While that's a bit like someone saying "You guys are the best crowd ever!" they definitely did have more films to choose from for the same number of slots, so who can blame him? They received 3,287 films for consideration this year, the most in the festival's 39-year history.

122 total films were chosen (not all of them screen in competition), and 82 of them will be world premieres. That's a heck of a lot of movies over two weeks. If you've ever attended Sundance in the past, then you know how difficult it is to get tickets. Passes are expensive and sell out quickly (in fact, only one level of pass is currently left, the $2500 Express Pass-B), however individual tickets will go on sale the week of January 9. You can pre-register right now through January 4 on the Sundance FIlm Festival website to receive a random, lottery-style time that will allow you to log in and purchase tickets that week.

Sundance is one of my favorite film festivals because of the sheer volume and variety of films that you are able to pick and choose from. Plus it's a chance to meet the filmmakers, other film lovers, and to experience it in beautiful Park City, Utah. The last two years that I've gone it was with minimum preparation and usually as a last-minute decision, but I've still managed to see at least 15 films in about five days each time. It's well worth the trip and enduring the cold to step out of your own world and into a creative environment, if just for a little while.

You can download a PDF file of all the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selections here. The festival runs from January 18th through the 28th -- time to start picking and choosing!