Festival Director James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 21st to February 2nd.
T-2 days until festival begins
Despite having a very comfortable bed at the Hotel RL in Salt Lake City, I didn’t sleep all that well last night. Probably just the excitement. After I checked in about 8pm, I wandered over to the Fisher Brewery, about a ten minute walk away, where I sampled some fine brews while dining on Jamaican jerk chicken and peas and rice courtesy of the food truck parked outside. It was a nice place with interesting beers, but pretty dead on a Monday night. I was pretty wiped out and only stayed an hour. Walking anywhere in SLC feels a bit strange, but at least my walk was well-lit. In previous years, I’d stayed at a suburban AirBnB that was pretty spooky at night.
This morning, after enjoying a buffet breakfast (another benefit of staying at a real hotel), I packed up and was ready for my shuttle pickup before 11am. Normally I’m picked up by Susan (who I’ve dubbed the Shuttle Queen™) but this morning it was her son Logan who picked me up. I joined a nice group of women from all over the US who were also volunteering at the festival. We were at HQ in Park City before noon, and it wasn’t busy, so we had all our stuff pretty quickly. I went and ate lunch at my old standby, Este Pizza (two slices and a drink is still just $7) and then just spent the next few hours at HQ waiting to pick up my lodging key. I ran into Daniel Webster, a young Englishman whom I first met at a screening here last year. He’s now studying film in Florida, and is helping us out as a screener for this year’s Shorts That Are Not Pants.
Shuttle Susan dropped by HQ and it was good to see her and give her a hug. She said her daughter Carly would be coming by just after 4pm and could drop people off at their lodgings, which is truly generous. I told her they should charge an extra $10 for that. There was a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing with a few people going to Park City Mountain Resort (notoriously difficult to navigate) and so I was dropped off last, since this year I’m all the way out in Deer Valley. It’s far out but the house is huge. I have my own room with two queen beds and my own bathroom too. Really comfortable. But not as easy to get back to during the day, and grocery shopping will be a bit of a trek. Google Maps says it’s only a 25 minute bus ride, but it just feels farther out due to the distance.
(11:20pm): Okay I went out and it took about half an hour each way. Not too bad, but I ended up spending US$55 on groceries, which seems a lot for some fruit, peanut butter, chips, and frozen chicken fingers. Food is definitely more expensive here. But eating a good breakfast each day is pretty important.
When I got back, both of my housemates had settled in. I met Felix last year briefly because we were lodging in the same building. He’s originally from Minneapolis but is living in Los Angeles right now. Greg is from Connecticut but lives in Brooklyn. They’re both probably mid-20s at the oldest, and they both work together in the Industry Office, which is right across the hall from Artist Relations. They have more fixed schedules than I do and so will probably end up seeing more films. They had ordered some pizzas so we just shared, and had a two hour conversation. I’m glad that we’re going to get along so well.
Training day tomorrow, starting at 9am and I’m not sure how long it will take me to get there from here, so heading to bed now.
P.S. In the photo above, I hope you can see the small pin above the logo on my jacket. That was given to me for five years of volunteering!