Sundance Film Festival 2008

REPORTING BY JAMES BARNES

For most of the Sundance Film Festival's first day all anyone was talking about was the weather. By common consensus this is the coldest Sundance has ever been.

In fact the first time people truly got warm was when they crammed in to Eccles Theatre, Park City, Utah to witness the familiar sight of Festival founder Robert Redford officially open proceedings.

Before introducing the opening film - 'In Bruges' - he cracked a few politically based funnies and said how excited he was about the amount of cross-over 'artists' involved this year (Diddy, 50 Cent, Maroon 5, Akon and One Republic are all in town on business - more of them in days to come).

Cue rapturous applause as a long-haired Colin Farrell took to the stage and bowed to the audience. Short and sweet but with leading ladies like Paris Hilton and Mischa Barton Sundance-bound he probably had other things on his mind!

And well may he go out and celebrate as In Bruges is genuinely a good film. Good but not great. The story of two Irish hitmen forced to take a holiday in Belgium, manages to combine comedy and drama in an engaging and funny way.

Any film that has references to Croydon, Coventry and Tottenham - and still has an American audience laughing gets our vote. A British audience however may not be quite as accepting of Ralph Fiennes' cockney accent.

As it happened the MTV crew bumped in to Mr Farrell in a bar a few hours afterwards and can report that he was with a couple of pals, mingling with the movie goers and not an A-list female in sight. New Year, new Colin??

Keep checking back for here for more exclusive news straight from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival