Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 20th to February 1st.
T-2 days until festival begins
My travel day began very very early. In fact it really began last night. I packed and headed to bed around 8pm, knowing I’d have to get up again at 2am. My flight to Chicago left at 6am and I needed to make sure to be at the airport no later than 4am. Falling asleep so early was no problem, but predictably, I woke up around 10pm and couldn’t really fall back to sleep for any length of time. I dozed uncomfortably during the 90-minute flight to Chicago, and a little bit more during the 3.5 hour flight to Salt Lake City, but both planes were small and I was crammed into a window seat each time. The stunning mountains in the image above were spotted out my window about ten minutes before we landed at Salt Lake City. They’re part of the Wasatch Range.
While waiting to leave Toronto, I ran into Michael Lerman, with whom I’ve worked at both Hot Docs and TIFF, and it was nice to see a friendly face so early in the morning. He’s attending Sundance, too, but for the next few days, he’s at Art House Convergence, an interesting-sounding conference for indie film exhibitors and festivals that’s taking place in Midway, just a few miles from Park City. I’m sure I’ll see him around in the next week.
On the shuttle from Salt Lake City airport into Park City, I met two other first-time volunteers. Kim is a retired guidance counsellor and Russell is an aspiring filmmaker. Both of them live in Chicago, though they’d just met. We had a friendly conversation for the 45 minutes it took to drop us all off at our individual accommodations. Hopefully, I’ll run into them again at the Staff and Volunteer party which is tomorrow night.
The place I’m staying for the first two nights is in a resort facility called The Prospector. The owners of each unit often rent them out and my “room” is like a mini-suite. Two queen beds, a gas fireplace and a little kitchen. It’s also about five minutes walk to the Festival HQ, where I’ll be spending much of my time. It’s too bad I couldn’t stay here for the entire festival, but the nightly rate more than doubles as soon as the festival actually begins.
I got into my room by about 12:30pm and the first thing I wanted to do was sleep. After a 90-minute nap, I contacted Kevin, the Film Office coordinator with whom I’ll be paired for the festival. We were going to meet up and get acquainted, but he was in the middle of a scheduling meeting, so I decided to pick up my volunteer credential and the rest of my stuff. As you can see, it’s quite impressive, especially the very fashionable Kenneth Cole down jacket.
I was also happy to get a printed copy of the film guide. Somehow I find it hard to make plans using a PDF. I brought all of this stuff back to the condo and then went back out again to meet Kevin and take a look around the Film Office. He introduced me to a few of the people I’ll be working with, and then we went out to a nearby Italian restaurant called Fuego, where I devoured a pizza and washed it down with a glass of some local microbrew. One of the quirks of Utah’s liquor licensing laws is that draft beer can only contain a maximum of 4% alcohol. But on the other hand, I’d been warned that the high altitude here might make any alcohol go straight to my head. In any case, one beer was plenty for tonight.
Tomorrow I have a full day of training, followed by the Staff and Volunteer party, so I think it’s important that I get a good night’s rest. There are a couple of free screenings tonight for volunteers, but I’m just too tired to go out. Right now it’s 7:15pm and I’m exhausted. Hoping to make it until 10pm, so I don’t end up awake (again!) in the middle of the night.
So not too much has happened so far, but Kevin and I did talk over my responsibilities a little bit. I’m sure everything will be fine. Looking forward to the training tomorrow, and meeting some more people!