Irina Markova poses with her poodles on stage in this still from Vance Malone's new short, The Poodle Trainer.

A new short film screening at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend puts a surprisingly somber spin on the story of a woman who dresses purebred poodles in tuxedos and teaches them to jump rope and conga.

Directed by Station Film's Vance Malone, The Poodle Trainer is a short documentary about Irina Markova, a Russian immigrant living in the United States who travels the world performing with 20 colorfully-costumed poodles.

The film, which premieres on Sunday, is the commercial director's third short. In 2003, his first film Ocularist also screened at Sundance, where it received an honorable mention.

Malone first encountered Markova at The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies last summer, where he was researching a film about the world's oldest living and performing showgirl. When that project became mired in bureaucratic issues around music rights clearances, he opted instead to turn his camera on the ringleader of the unusual dog show that preceded the showgirl acts.

"Two minutes of watching her first show I elbowed my producer, Sarah McMurray, and said ‘we have to go meet her'," he says. "I'd never seen dogs perform tricks like this - the one that really struck me was when the poodle walked on its back paws and had its front paws up in the air."

Malone and DP Marc Greenfield followed Markova to Branson, Missouri, where they spent five days last summer following the trainer as she and her 20 poodles prepared for and performed two daily shows.

Predictably, The Poodle Trainer is packed with ridiculously cute moments of dogs jumping rope and running around in dresses, but it's Markova's back story and austere character that Malone uses to drive the eight-minute film's narrative.

At one point, the dog trainer nearly breaks down when explaining how she lost a dog as a child - a moment that sparked her devotion to animals. For the director, who didn't get to interview his subject until the last day of shooting, the revelation brought the film together and gave it a focus.

"There were a lot of universal truths that came out of this film that I think a lot of people can identify with," says Malone. "I don't know that it's easy to identify with a poodle trainer for the circus, but it's certainly easy to identify with having lost something when you were a child. Or it's easy as a human being to feel like an outsider or that you don't belong in this world. I think a lot of us probably feel that way."

The film's visual style is a departure from Malone's commercial work. He shot on a Canon 5D with an antique suede filter to add a touch of nostalgia and "polished rawness".

Markova speaks very little English, so the director was unable to interview her until a translator arrived on the final day of shooting. Once the two were able to communicate, Malone realized he had more in common with her than he originally thought.

"She certainly is an artist in the sense that once you have the vision for how it needs to be done there's just no other way to do it," he says. "I find that very similar to being a director: you go out and you create it and put it together. It's sort of like that old adage that ‘nobody knows what to do better than you.' She had that charisma and that really struck me."

The Poodle Trainer Sundance screening info:
Sunday, Jan. 24, 3:00 p.m. - Temple Theatre, Park City
Monday, Jan. 25, 8:30 a.m. - Yarrow Hotel Theatre 1, Park City
Tuesday, Jan. 26, 10:30 p.m. - Broadway Centre Cinemas IV, Salt Lake City
Thursday, Jan. 28, 6 p.m. - Yarrow Hotel Theatre 1, Park City

www.thepoodletrainer.com
www.stationfilm.com