What does it mean for our independent film world that the best film from Sundance 2008 is self-distributing? Has the indie infrastructure failed Lance Hammer's "Ballast"? Well, it's more complicated than that, as Hammer told me for this indieWIRE article, "'Ballast' Steadies Course Alone" -- mainly because his budget was probably more than the film could withstand in the marketplace. But Hammer also has an important point, independent of the financial realities that dog the art-film business: "If Sundance is considered the acme of American festivals, and 'Ballast' was one of the films that was rated highly there," he said, "then it would be a total tragedy if I couldn't make another film like it again."