Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 16th to 28th.
Festival Day 1
I got to the Artist Relations Office at 9:30am and worked pretty solidly without leaving the building until 7:00pm. It was a day of filmmaker checkins, which is always exciting as everyone arrives in Park City buzzing for the days ahead. Although I’m assigned to Indie Episodic and Spotlight, I’m often called upon to check in filmmakers from other sections when the Artist Relations Liaison and their category volunteer are both unavailable. So I ended up checking in two teams from the NEXT and Midnight sections for my friend Regina.
I also spotted a lot of familiar faces, including short filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt, with whom I briefly spoke. I also saw Kerri Craddock from TIFF, Kathleen McInnis from See-Through Films, short filmmaker Trevor Anderson, and probably a few more whose names I’m forgetting. It’s a nice gathering of kindred spirits here, and I can’t wait to see some films. Although I have to be in the office for 8am tomorrow, I’m planning to attend the first screening of Shorts Program 1 (including Don’s film World of Tomorrow Episode 2: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts) tonight at the Prospector Square Cinema, just a few minutes walk from HQ.
I ate far too much pizza today, but did manage to start the day with cereal and orange juice, and ate a banana and some diced mangoes during the day. The biggest thing is remembering to drink a lot of water. I find the altitude and the dry air contribute to some serious chapped lips and parched throat. That’s also because filmmaker checkins involve a lot of me talking, so my voice is feeling worn out tonight.
So I did get to the shorts screening, though I was absolutely exhausted by the time it was over. World of Tomorrow‘s second episode was a solid follow-up to the award-winning first episode, but my favourite of the bunch was Men Don’t Whisper, a hysterically funny story about a gay couple hoping to assert their masculinity by trying to sleep with women. I also really liked Garfield, about the morning after a drunken hookup. Can’t wait to see more shorts!