A feature-length documentary about Second Life, Life 2.0, has just been announced as a Festival Spotlight entry at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. As any movie geek can tell you, this is spectacular news: Sundance is easily the world's most prestigious and important indie film fest, launching the careers of movie luminaries like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers, and the best platform for independent filmmakers seeking distribution deals with Hollywood studios and beyond. Here's the movie's official site; check out the tantalizing trailer below:

"Life 2.0" documentary teaser from Jason Spingarn-Koff on Vimeo

Jason Spingarn-Koff, the director of Life 2.0, is duly overjoyed to show his film at Sundance: "A huge honor and dream come true!" he tells me by email. "I joined Second Life more than three years ago and found it endlessly fascinating – something that until now seemed largely science fiction." (In SL, his avatar name is Jay Spire.) "There was clearly a story that needed to be told, though it often seemed impossible because many people within SL are extremely guarded about their real identities. It took more than six months to find the main characters, exploring the world while my avatar carried around a virtual movie camera. I'm enormously grateful for my subjects who opened up their lives, real and virtual, to share their stories." Not bad for a movie that was first financed with some seed money from a SL fundraiser, where all of $100 was collected.

As I say, Sundance is the best launchpad to get a distribution deal, so the chances of Life 2.0 screening in theaters or on a TV network soon are very good. Meantime, you can follow its progress on the movie's Facebook page. Summary and some stills courtesy Jason after the break: