Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 19th to 31st.
Festival Day 8
Another long and quiet shift in the Film Office, from 8:00am until around 1:00, when I left to attend a panel at the New Frontier Gateway venue downtown. It featured the DANIELS (Daniel Kwon and Daniel Scheinert) along with their sound designer Brent Kiser (who looked like a hipster guru, resplendent in his beanie and poncho!). For 90 minutes, they discussed their approach to the sound design and the score of their film Swiss Army Man which I’m trying to see on Saturday morning. They showed several clips and it was pretty enlightening. Some of the audience weren’t thrilled with the amount of time devoted to discussing how best to record farts, though. I couldn’t help but tweet some of the surreal discussion:
I had plans to see Polish mermaid musical The Lure afterward but the journey to Redstone Cinemas seemed daunting and my energy on this particular day was very low, so I opted to nap and recharge my batteries for a few hours. Good decision. I did walk from my lodging to the Library Theatre for a 9:00pm screening of Tickled, an utterly bonkers documentary from New Zealand. What starts as an investigation into “competitive endurance tickling” videos online turns into a creepy and ultimately scary exposé of a pretty disturbing individual. Director David Farrier was present for a Q&A, and seemed both amused and stressed when someone told him that one of the film’s antagonists was present in the screening taking copious notes. The presence of three police officers to escort the director also added a sinister element to the evening.
I just enjoyed a brisk walk home afterwards, and listened to some music before bed. This introvert desperately needed this day to recharge his batteries, so I didn’t feel bad about skipping movies. Just a couple of days left!