"I wrote it when I was 26, I cast it when I was 27, I shot it when I was 28 and now it's being released when I'm 29," says Cherot. "Happy? Relieved is more like it."

"Hav Plenty" is considered one of the front-runners in the feature-film competition, along with Saul Rubinek's black comedy "Jerry and Tom," Marc Levin's prison drama "Slam" and Brad Anderson's romantic comedy "Next Stop, Wonderland" (the latter already signed to a $6 million Miramax distribution deal).

"Halfway through the process, the jury is at ease," says director Paul Schrader, a member of this year's feature-film jury. "Most have seen a film that they feel is worth winning."

Now safely established as the most prestigious and publicized film fest in the United States ó the two qualities may amount to the same thing ó Sundance has developed two distinct personalities: an insurance office by day and a frat party by night.

The running of the festival has become more efficient and professional. The number of films has been reduced from 127 last year to 103; a new 1,300-seat auditorium has been added to the festival's small, often-strained collection of screening rooms and theaters and a network of radio-dispatched shuttle buses has been added to keep the 13,000 festival participants moving more or less smoothly through the snow-packed streets of the Wasatch Mountains ski town where the festival is held.

All of this has made it much easier for the business of the festival ó the buying, selling and promotion of independent films ó to be conducted in a comparatively orderly manner. Gone is much of the tension and hysteria that characterized past festivals. Instead of the restaurant shouting matches of yore, one hears only the serene murmur of buyers and sellers, whispering gently into their cell phones. On the lunatic fringe for so long, the independent film industry is suddenly looking calm, rational and even a bit dull.

At sunset, though, the togas come out, as the aspiring filmmakers who hope to be discovered take over the Main Street restaurants, exuding cigar smoke and testosterone. There are three or four huge parties every night, celebrating various films and companies. Most seem to consist of densely packed crowds of tense young men in parkas, who hammer back the local ale while pressing sweaty press releases into each other's hands.

At the center of those crowds, struggling to look as down to earth as possible, stand the various and wildly assorted stars of the independent film world. This year's cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, whose latest, "Sliding Doors" about a woman of mystery who shuttles between two different lives), was screened here on opening night a week ago, Daryl Hannah, Parker Posey, Brooke Shields, Nick Nolte, Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, Gabriel Byrne, Sam Rockwell, Billy Baldwin, Joely Richardson and Matthew Modine.