The recent Sundance Film Festival had its share of hip hop movie action, though certainly not as heated as last year’s feeding frenzy over Hustle & Flow that may have helped spawn wh at some consider to be this year’s focus on potential box office hits by the major distr ibutors.

So far I haven’t heard of any deals for Beyond Beats & Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture whose director Byron Hurt said, “I want this film to be the talk of Sundance . . . But what I really want is for somebody with a lot of money to fall in love with this film.”

Beyond Beats & Rhymes is set to appear on PBS’s Independent Lens documentary seri es this spring.

The Beastie Boys also appeared at Sundance in support of their concert film Awesome; I f*ckin’ Shot That which premiered at this year’s fe stival. The documentary was edited by MCA from footage of a concert at Madison Square Garden taken by fans wielding Hi-8 and digital video cameras.

The Beastie Boys played an hour-long live set at one party as part of their promotional efforts but I haven’t heard of any deals for them either.

Chris Lee takes a nice look at hip hop’s presence at the Sundance Film Festival including another hip hop documentary shown at Sundance called The Hip Hop Project that “chronicles a social outreach program em powering inner-city teens — the project teaches self-realization through helping kids learn MC and DJ skills.”