No one knows what to expect from the Sundance Film Festival, least of all Chicago-based filmmaker Steve James, whose career was launched when the Utah-based event embraced his 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams. 

Now James is returning to the festival, which kicks off Thursday, with a documentary that's existing in a strange state known as Miramax limbo. Miramax, the alpha distributor that long dominated the indie-film scene, has been embroiled in contentious contract negotiations with parent company Disney, and all signs point to an imminent divorce, with Disney keeping the Miramax name and film library and Miramax co-founders Harry and Bob Weinstein raising money to start another company elsewhere.