Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 16th to 28th.
Festival Day 6
My busiest day of the festival, with three Indie Episodic premieres, back to back to back. The first two were at the Park Avenue Theatre (formerly the Yarrow) and the last was at the brand new cinema called The Ray. Priya and I were working at separate venues today and although I was a tiny bit nervous, I was also eager to take a more active role in hosting film teams and working with the venue staff. I’m happy to say that all of our screenings went smoothly.
After the second screening, I ran into young Sam Fragoso from the Talk Easy podcast. He had his luggage with him and was heading home to L.A. tonight. I found a comfortable chair in a corner and promptly fell asleep. I was awakened by the sound of someone’s voice saying “Is anyone here from Artist Relations?” My head jerked up and I jumped to my feet. It was one of the venue team with a very minor question, but then I spent the next hour trying to wake myself up fully. Luckily for the last screening, I had extra support from Sofia, another Artist Relations liaison.
Tonight was the Shorts Awards Party, which is always a great time. Unfortunately, since I’m not working on either of the shorts programmes this year, I wasn’t working the event, nor was I able to get a ticket. After coming home around 7:00pm, I decided to go see a film tonight to take my mind off missing the party. I went back to The Ray and caught Summer of ’84, an enjoyable coming-of-age/horror film that unfortunately looks a lot like Stranger Things. In any case, it was nice to see another film.
One more early morning premiere tomorrow at the Egyptian, which means I’m up again at 6:00am, but hoping I’ll have more time for myself soon.