One of the best films I saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Andrew Rossi’s documentary Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times (the “A Year” has now been dropped from the title).  This is a must-see film that takes a thoughtful look at our nation’s greatest newspaper as it faces an existential threat from online media and recent shots at its credibility.  The movie celebrates the Times but also takes an honest look at where the paper has fallen short and where it’s struggling to succeed.

A trailer for the film has gone online and I think it does a good job of giving you an overview, but I think it could make a better sale by showing David Carr being a gigantic badass.   Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Atlanta folks: The movie is playing at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival and will be at the Landmark Midtown on Thursday, May 5th at 7pm.  Everybody else: the film hits theaters on June 24th.

While the 2011 Sundance Film Festival may be over, the acquisition deals certainly are not. A large number of films got picked up by distributors during the festival this year, and a few more have nabbed distribution deals recently. Oprah’s OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) made its second acquisition of the festival (the first being the Chaz Bono documentary Becoming Chaz) with Yoav Potash’s justice system documentary Crime After Crime. THR reports that HBO is close to picking up another American justice documentary, Hot Coffee, and Pretty Pictures and Alliance Films have grabbed French and Canadian rights, respectively, for the documentary Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times. Finally, a film that one of Collider’s own Sundance attendees (Matt) had heard would not find distribution ended up getting a deal anyway: Evan Glodell’s Bellflower has been acquired by Oscilloscope Laboratories for all English-speaking territories.

If you missed any of our Sundance coverage, including reviews, other acquisitions and exclusive interviews, click here. For an overview of the entire festival, be sure to check out Matt’s Sundance Scorecard and Impressions from his time in Park City.

Arguably the most important newspaper in the country, The New York Times is an American institution.  However, that status hasn’t protected it from the same difficulties faced by virtually all other major print publications.  Andrew Rossi’s documentary Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times takes an even-handed look at the challenges the Times faces not only in terms of competition from online publications, but where it stands in relation to organizations like WikiLeaks and NBC.  The film also spends time with various personalities at the paper including witty and sarcastic editor Bruce Headlam and badass/media reporter David Carr.  The documentary offers a fascinating look at these issues and individuals, but never finds a way to tie them all together.

The films playing in-competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival have been announced.  Some of this year’s competitors include Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut Higher Ground, Paddy Considine’s feature directorial debut Tyrannosaur, Matthew Chapman’s thriller The Ledge, Michael Rapaport’s documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life (which is about the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest), and a documentary about lovable Sesame Street resident Elmo (or rather, his puppeteer).

However, the movies playing in-competition at Sundance are only a fraction of the total number of films that play at the festival.  This will be my first year attending the festival and I’m super-excited about going.  Hit the jump for a full list of the in-competition films.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.