Sundance is all the rage in Utah, but we Minnesotans have our own film festival right in our back yard. You could even say it's bigger.
With five movies playing on the Upper Midwest's largest screen, the Science Museum of Minnesota kicks off its 11th annual Omnifest Friday through March 11.
Two of them have never been seen in Minnesota. The highlight is "Van Gogh: Brush With Genius," which brings the great artist's works alive on the giant screen, taking you so close you can see the cracked paint and the vibrant brushwork. The movie is inventive, "narrated" as it were by Van Gogh himself.
Also new to Minnesota audiences is "Ski to the Max," an extreme-sports film directed by and starring the daring Wally Bogner, who takes all varieties of death-defying leaps in the Rockies.
The other three films -- "Africa's Elephant Kingdom," "Into the Deep" and "The Greatest Places" (commissioned by the Science Museum) -- allow viewers to revisit old favorites.
"Few theaters on Earth can tell a story like an Omnitheater can," said Mike Day, senior vice president of the Science Museum, noting that its is regarded as perhaps the nation's best for watching these gigantic movies.
"Our technological standards put us at the top," Day said. "We have a great screen and state-of-the-art projection with superior lenses."
Indeed, the projector is so impressive that it is on display behind a glass wall, allowing moviegoers to gawk at the giant machine. The 70-millimeter movies are assembled into one large reel of film that lies flat on a platter just over 4 feet across. Before each show, each movie is hand-loaded through the projector. When this is finished, the projector rises 20 feet into a smaller booth where it beams the image onto a nine-story-high domed screen.
