Ballast

"Ballast": An Art House Classic Indie Movie Ripe for Rediscovery

It would be a stretch to call Ballast a lost film. The movie debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and earned Best Director and Cinematography awards. It made it into a few Best of the Year lists and gathered some Indie Spirit nominations. Alas, you could say director Lance Hammer went MIA. He paid his dues working on visual effects in studio fare like Batman and Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997) and Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, 1998), inching towards the independent side of the industry by working on the Art Department of The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2001). After seven years of radio silence, he took over Salt Lake City by storm with his stellar feature film debut. So far, it remains his most recent credit on IMDB.