It is understandable that Joe Swanberg feels particularly buoyant in the gorgeous resort town of Park City, Utah.

It has nothing to do with the altitude.

Swanberg, a Naperville Central High School graduate, is now at the center of the universe for the American film business. His new movie, Uncle Kent, is one he wrote, directed, edited, acted in and photographed. It premiered last Friday at the Sundance Film Festival—a 10-day showcase for independent films.

The feat marks the most recent ascent of Swanberg. His movies are probably never going to reach the multiplex, he said, but the 29-year-old independent filmmaker is a rising force in the world of American cinema. He makes the films he wants on his own terms, he said.

In addition to Uncle Kent, he has made two additional features, Silver Bullets and Art History, that are premiering at the Berlin Film festival next month. Uncle Kent was acquired for distribution by New York-based IFC Films, a critical supporter of his films.

Furthermore, the movie is being made available on various video and cable download platforms under the rubric of Sundance Selects.

Swanberg brings a well-rounded perspective to his pieces that can possibly be traced back to his upbringing. The son of a prominent Johnson Controls executive, he had a peripatetic life of shuttling between different states. He even spent two years in his adolescence living on Kwajalein, an atoll in the Marshall Islands that is a ballistic missile test site center, he said.

When he was in eighth grade, Swanberg finally settled in Naperville. He made his first movies in high school, studying film with the  Naperville Central teacher, Dave Gaydos. Kevin Bewersdorf, a classmate of Swanberg’s, is one of his key collaborators.

He now works under the professional name, Kev. He composed the music for Uncle Kent and plays a critical supporting part as a friend of the title character.

After graduating from NCHS in 1999, Swanberg studied formally at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He worked at the Chicago International Film festival for two years after earning his degree and made his first professional film, Kissing on the Mouth, in 2005.

Sitting with Kev, animator Kent Osborne and the actors Jennifer Prediger and Josephine Decker, Swanberg talked about his work. The movie focuses on the romantic travails of Osborne, who plays a fictionalized version of himself.

Like most of his movies, the plot turns on the strange, confusing and awkward romantic exchanges of Osborne, who meets a beautiful and alluring woman—played by Prediger—on the Internet. 

Their frank and startlingly confessional discussions about relationships, sex and desire lead them down a strange path as they try to work out the exact nature of their relationship, Swanberg said. The story takes a surreal change with the introduction of another sexually provocative young woman played by Decker.

Swanberg, who has acted in all of his own films and many of his friends’, also plays a version of himself, yielding a sharp and compelling turn as a filmmaker whose power and settled personal life offer a stark contrast to that of his friend, Kent. He typically never rehearses with his cast, he said, because it takes away the spontaneity and impulsiveness his movies are grounded in.

Swanberg shot the movie in one week last May in Los Angeles, he said. He and Osborne wrote the script.

Like Uncle Kent, the dominant theme of Swanberg’s work are social and sexual relationships between men and women, and how technology and social media complicate those dynamics.

“The reason Joe is such a beautiful truth teller is the work he does shows such an authenticity about sexuality that is awkward, funny and very tender,” Prediger said. “Sometimes people do unspeakable things to each other. If our job is to tell the truth and show what is real in life, part of that is exposing that awkward, fumbling sexuality.”

The movie has a mournful and wistful tone.

Swanberg‘s wife, Kris, another frequent collaborator in his films, gave birth to their son, Jude, last November. He said becoming a father played a crucial role in propelling Uncle Kent to fruition.

“I had been spinning my wheels creatively trying to finish Silver Bullets,” Swanberg said. “It was just getting harder to make. After almost two years of working on that, being depressed and stuck, (Kris being pregnant) got me going and it opened the flood gates.”