Grand Rapids natives land Sundance spot

The Grand Rapids Press

Canine anatomy -- it must have had the Sundance Film Festival selection committee in stitches.

"Dog Lovers," a four-minute short film co-written by East Kentwood High School graduate Tonya Cornelisse and East Grand Rapids High School alum Graham Sibley, has been accepted for the prestigious festival Friday-Jan. 28 in Park City, Utah.

"For a short filmmaker, this is huge," Cornelisse said while visiting her parents, Tom and Kim Cornelisse, of Kentwood, over the holidays.

The short, which will run in front of the Stanley Tucci/Patricia Clarkson comedy "Blind Date," stars Cornelisse and Sibley as dog owners who meet in a park and develop a mutual attraction over their profane discussion of their pets' parts.

The two actors developed the film from a long form improvisation Cornelisse did with Alan Arkin while living in New York City.

"Dog Lovers" is one of 83 shorts selected from more than 5,000 submissions from 17 countries.

Cornelisse, 26, and Sibley, 30, live in Los Angeles, and primarily are actors. They starred together in the 2005 Sundance entry "Zombie Honeymoon," which recently aired on Showtime, and Sibley has a role in Oscar-winning director Bill Guttentag's "Nanking," which opened in limited release in December.

For the second year, short films from the Sundance Film Festival can be downloaded through iTunes and are available through Netflix. Links can be found at the film's web site, www.dognoodles.com.

"That's really great for short filmmakers," Cornelisse said, "because it's hard to get the film out there. It's usually only available to people in the industry or really big cities."