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Today's NY Times story on the films entered into competition at the 2007 Sundance Festival Of Film, Open Bars, And Swag Suites updated us on the journey of a project we first heard about in July, back when it was struggling for financing to complete the shoot and the agent of its talented, pre-teen star was raving about how proud she was of her client's ability to convincingly portray the violent taking of her innocence:

And in an as-yet-untitled Southern gothic directed by Deborah Kampmeier ("Virgin"), Dakota Fanning plays a precocious girl in 1950's Alabama who sings and dances like Elvis Presley. But the film includes a scene in which the 12-year-old Miss Fanning's character is raped.

Indeed, it sounds a little harsh when the inevitably controversial moment is presented as the one where "12-year-old Miss Fanning's character is raped," but we're sure that when festival-goers congregate on a ice-slicked sidewalk outside its Park City screening, still reeling from the complicated work of art they just witnessed, they'll eventually all agree that the scene in question was shot in the most tasteful, non-exploitative, and Oscar-nomination-guaranteeing manner possible.