Soon after arriving at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, last January, where she had come to present her debut feature Frozen River, writer-director Courtney Hunt crossed paths with one of the famous filmmakers serving on the jury panel.

''It was Quentin Tarantino,'' Hunt, 43, says with a laugh. 'And I thought `Oh my God.' I didn't know he was on the jury. I kept thinking `He's going to hate this movie.' I didn't even make eye contact with him.''

Hunt's nervousness was understandable. Frozen River, which opens Friday, didn't seem like the sort of picture toward which Tarantino would gravitate. The movie is a low-budget drama about a working-class single mother named Ray (Melissa Leo) who lives in a trailer in upstate New York with her two sons.

In a desperate attempt to provide for her family, Ray teams up with a young Mohawk woman named Lila (Misty Upham) and starts smuggling illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Canada border, hiding them in her trunk as she drives across the perilous, frozen St. Lawrence River.

PICKED UP BY SONY

An intense, sometimes harrowing exploration of motherhood and the bonds that can form between disparate people in times of duress, Frozen River was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics after its Sundance screenings. But the real surprise came at the awards ceremony that closed the festival, when the movie won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature. And Tarantino, who handed Hunt the award, proved her initial reaction wrong, saying the movie ``took my breath away, and then somewhere around the last hour it put my heart in a vise and proceeded to twist that vise until the last frame.''

With its focus on two mothers and the uneasy friendship that develops, Frozen River could be categorized as a woman's picture. But Hunt believes there's a reason why Tarantino -- and other viewers of both sexes -- have responded so strongly to the film.

''As I wrote this script, I tried to be true to Ray and Lila and not have any false moments of bonding between them,'' Hunt says. 'My attitude was: `If these two bond during the course of the story, great, and if they don't, that's too bad.' They give each other a hard time, the way women give each other a much harder time than men do.

'As the story went on, I kept thinking `What's underneath?' And what came back out was that they're both moms. Ray would do anything for her kids, and she sees this other woman relates to her as a mom. That feeling jumps cultural lines. It's not exclusive to women at all. Men get this movie. Doing anything for your kids is true for dads, too.''

Raised in Memphis and Nashville by a single mother who divorced when Hunt was a toddler, the filmmaker says part of the inspiration for Frozen River came from her childhood.

''My mom had the ambition to become a lawyer,'' Hunt says. ``She was dyslexic before anyone knew about that, and people just thought she was stupid. It was painful to watch her try to get into law school, which is difficult, then go through it and have all these difficulties with the bar exam. She wanted so badly to achieve this, not just for herself but as a model for me. And, by God, she passed that bar exam, and she's now a practicing lawyer. But it took a long time.''

Hunt followed her mother's path and enrolled in law school at Northeastern, where she met her future husband. But her real passion lay in movies, a love she had cultivated as a child when her mother regularly took her to the local art cinemas.

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@