Four films from this part of the world are in Sundance: The Off Hours (Megan Griffiths), The Catechism Cataclysm (by Todd Rohal), The Oregonian (by Calvin Lee Reeder), and The Details (by Jacob Aaron Estes). So far, the film that's generating a buzz is The Off Hours, which is in the out-of-competition NEXT section of the festival. And the source of much of that buzz has been a very positive review in Variety.

Few would dispute, though, that the film is all of a piece in evoking the feel of a whistle-stop outpost in the lonely hours before dawn. Ace indie lenser Benjamin Kasulke proves as sensitive to the shifting texture of the desolate landscape, with its extensive palette of blacks and grays, as helmer Griffiths is to every nuance of her dead-end characters' mood swings.

The word on the street is that The Off Hours, the only local film that has a decent chance of being sold, has a sales agent but not a buyer. The word on the street can only hope for the best.

The Off Hours Pic by Jason Ganwich