Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 22nd to February 3rd.
I’m incredibly excited to be returning to Park City for the fourth time in the past five years. The past year has been a rollercoaster, with a cancer diagnosis just before last year’s festival, surgery upon my return, followed by seven months of chemotherapy. Happily, I’m feeling well, but there have been some lasting effects and I’m a tiny bit worried they may affect my ability to do my job effectively. I have ongoing neuropathy in my fingers and feet, which feels like pins and needles and some numbness. This is more annoying than debilitating, but it could be with me for months or even years. More worrying is the development of cataracts within weeks of my chemotherapy ending. My left eye is much worse, with vision so blurry I can’t read any text at any distance. I have an appointment with a surgeon when I get back, but having blurred vision isn’t the best situation when a big part of my job is having to recognize the faces of unfamiliar filmmakers.
Nevertheless, I’m privileged to be returning to the Artist Relations department, and very happy to be working on the International Shorts programme again. I’m looking forward to meeting my colleagues, especially Bobby, the International Shorts coordinator. There are quite a lot of new faces this year in Artist Relations, and I’m eager to meet everyone. I fly down on Monday evening, when I’ll spend a night in Salt Lake City before riding to Park City with Shuttle Queen™ Susan on Tuesday morning.
I’m also incredibly fortunate to be heading to (hopefully) sunny Los Angeles after the festival for six days. I’ll mostly be using that time to make plans for 2019, including working on three quarterly screenings (the first of which will be held on February 21 at Cinecycle) and our 2019 festival. I’m hoping to see most or all of the Sundance shorts and to make connections with filmmakers, so I can bring some great films to our Toronto screen.
In what’s become a bit of a tradition, I’ll mention the number of granola bars I’ll be bringing along. This year, it’s a paltry(?) 11. I hope you’ll follow along with my festival adventures again.