Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 16th to 28th.
Festival Day 3
A very quiet start to the day in the Artist Relations Office. I was hoping more of our filmmakers might check in today but nobody stopped by. Lots of snow overnight made this morning’s walk to work beautiful, but also a bit treacherous. Just after I took the nice picture above, I went sprawling on some snow-covered ice. Luckily nobody saw me.
Later in the afternoon, we had our second premiere. This time it was for The Death of Stalin, a very funny film I saw back in September at TIFF. We were hosting the director, Armando Iannucci, along with stars Andrea Riseborough and Jason Isaacs. There was also a BBC crew shooting a documentary segment on Iannucci, so it was a little bit chaotic, but the venue team at the MARC Theatre helped us keep things together.
I was off at 6:30pm and went straight to the Prospector Square Theatre to get in line for a volunteer ticket for Robert Greene’s Bisbee ’17. I’ve known Robert for many years now, having written about one of his earlier films (Kati with an I) and I consider him a friend, albeit one I don’t see often. In fact, it was two years ago at Sundance when I last saw him, at a screening of his previous film Kate Plays Christine. But he immediately recognized me, gave me a big hug, and asked about my health. Robert knows millions of people and seems to remember and care about all of them, a character trait that made his latest film even more powerful. Bisbee ’17 captures the inhabitants of Bisbee, Arizona grappling with a dark incident from their history. They reenact the forced evacuation of copper miners who were striking for better conditions in 1917. It’s beautifully captured and there are some lovely epiphanies for many of the town’s citizens.
Before the film, I had a long chat with Harvey Lalonde, a legendary Toronto festival volunteer who also volunteers here at Sundance. This year, lost identification and a last-minute passport replacement nearly led to a cancelled trip, but luckily he made it with just hours to spare.
By the time the film was over, I only had time to catch the shuttle home, make some soup and write this post. I have to be up at 6:00am again tomorrow for another early shift in the office.