With the success of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, the highest grossing documentary of all time ($19 million in domestic box office as of this writing), docs are finally getting theatrical, as well as critical, acclaim.

The Sundance Film Festival has long been a supporter of the documentary. This year's 2003 line-up was no exception with sixteen excellent competition documentaries. Sundance 03 also featured a new short documentary program (Short VI), and an entirely new section called World Cinema Documentary, which showcased nine docs made overseas.

Here is a sampling of the documentaries screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival:

Director Oliver Stone's Comandante had its premiere at Sundance with the enigmatic filmmaker making the introduction while a crowd of paparazzi snapped his photograph. In his opening remarks, Stone noted that although the film has been termed a documentary, he wants audience members to make their own decision. The 93 minute film (edited down from more than 30 hours of interviews) did indeed "document" the three days Stone spent in conversation with Fidel Castro in Cuba. Shot on digital video, Stone pursues a myriad of questions—political, historical, and philosophical, as well as personal—of the man who has survived four decades worth of American presidents. The relationship between Stone and Castro becomes as much a focus of the film as the life and leadership of the Cuban dictator. Castro is warm, hospitable, passionate, intense, and incredibly funny. You actually catch yourself believing Castro almost as much as he believes himself.

Bukowski: Born Into This Director John Dullaghan attempts to "peel off the hardened mask of the beast." Utilizing an array of interviews (many alcohol-soaked) revealing the writer in his own words and as seen by the people who knew him and loved him best, the film's nonlinear approach to this writer's life is admirable, but at times too lengthy. It does, however, successfully scratch away the brusque surface to reveal an insecure and loving man who never escaped the pain he suffered as an abused little boy.

Directors Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock presented A Certain Kind of Death, showing what happens to people in Los Angeles County who die without any next of kin. Difficult to watch at first (yes, they do show the dead), in the end, this film gives a strange feeling of comfort to know there are a team of people working every day to give respect to those who die alone.

If you happen to love Gore Vidal as much as I do, then The Education of Gore Vidal is a film for you. Directed by veteran filmmaker Deborah Dickson, the film gives access to one our country's most outspoken historians. We are invited into his Italian villa where he settled more than 30 years ago with his life-long boyfriend. We accompany him on a trip to the United States to assist with the Broadway revival of his still-relevant play, The Best Man. We are also treated to historical footage of Vidal sparring with William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer, just to name a few. The best part is just listening to this prolific writer/historian talk about his life and work.

[Writer's Aside: While I waited in line (and in the snow) for the Sundance Awards Party on the closing weekend, Director Dickson stood next to me. I admit that I did gush a bit over my love and adoration for Gore. I also quoted from her Q&A, when she asked Vidal if she could be present when he read the reviews of quite possibly his last Broadway play. He touched Deborah's cheek and said, "Angel, there will be no spontaneous television with me!" I did have enough self-respect to refrain from suggesting to Deborah that she pull a Marcia Brady, and never wash that cheek again!]

Director/Screenwriter Anne Makepeace was solicited by PBS to create Robert Capa: In Love and War. The talented filmmaker brings Capa to life, not only for his celebrated photographs, but also as a mysterious man about town. She expertly combines Capa's own photographs with archival footage, and narration from many of Capa's letters, as well as interviews with beloved friends. Lucky for everyone, this film will be aired on PBS later this year.

Part of the new Word Cinema Documentary section, Iran, Veiled Appearances comes from Director/Screenwriter/Cinematographer Thierry Michel, who introduced the film and noted the timeliness of it. If indeed Iran is part of U.S. President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil," than the more Americans know about the country the better. This insightful film shows contemporary life in Iran, a country potentially on the verge of significant change. Michel accesses Iran's paramilitary religious sects and juxtaposes it with a youth culture (which is amazingly more than half of Iran's population), expressing their need for change and rebellion against their parents who fought for the Islamic Revolution in the mid-1970s.

Shorts Program VI was a special treat with all short-length documentaries. The program included:

Director Frances Nkara's Downpour Resurfacing, an experimental look at the life of an abused child and the man he has become.

Kiss and Tell from Director Michaline Babich, a quick and luscious voxpop look at sexuality and the American woman.

And finally Vanessa, by Director Kevin Jerome Everson. A film about loss and Michelangelo.

The other two films Twin Towers and Why Can't We Be a Family Again? both received Oscar nominations this year as well. Twin Towers from Directors Bill Guttentag and Robert David Port is about two brothers, one a firefighter, one a police officer, who are remembered for their bravery in New York City on September 11.

Why Can't We Be a Family Again? is by Directors Roger Weisberg and Murray Nossel, and follows two extraordinary brothers struggle to believe in their mother's love, as she loses her battle with drug addiction.

Winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize was Capturing the Friedmans, directed by Andrew Jarecki. The film follows the Friedmans, an upper-middle class Jewish family whose world is transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with sexual molestation charges against neighborhood children. The arrests are aligned with the advent of home video cameras, and the ordeal is played out in numerous hours of footage. Given access to the family's videos, Jarecki delves into this family, the American legal system, and an era in the 1980s when similar police investigations were played out on the local news channels (àla the McMartins in Manhattan Beach, California). Although the Friedmans are indeed seen and heard from in their own home videos, and in this award-winning documentary, the truth of what really happened and who was responsible remains elusive. Sound like any family you might know?

Other documentary award winners at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival included The Documentary Audience Award for My Flesh and Blood, directed by Jonathan Karsh. The Excellence in Cinematography Award went to Dana Kupper, Gordon Quinn, and Peter Gilbert for Stevie. The Documentary Jury awarded the Freedom of Expression Award to What I Want My Words To Do To You, directed by Judith Katz, Madeleine Gavin, and Gary Sunshine. The Documentary Jury bestowed Special Jury Prizes to The Murder of Emmett Till, directed by Stanley Nelson, and to A Certain Kind of Death, directed and produced by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock.