Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival from January 20th to February 1st.
Festival Day 2
Incredibly busy day today. We had the first screening of Shorts Program 2 at 11:30 but we were there at 10:30 for a press line. Before that, I’d been at the Film Office since 8:00am doing more filmmaker check ins. And where yesterday was pretty quiet, today was bananas. I think we had six film teams check in between 9:00am and 10:00am this morning, which left us racing off to get to the cinema for our press line. Luckily the screening was at the Prospector, which was only a 5 minute walk away.
After that, we were back to the office for a while and then we were able to attend a lunch reception for the International Shorts filmmakers. It was held right next to the Library Theatre, which is also conveniently right next to where I’m staying, so after some much-needed food and a beer, I popped back for a 45-minute nap. While at the lunch, I got to meet Riz Ahmed (most recently he played Jake Gyllenhaal’s sidekick in Nightcrawler), whose first short film Daytimer is playing in Park City tomorrow. He’s also a rapper back in the UK, and we talked about a Muslim punk band called The Kominas, who were featured in a doc called Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam which was distributed in Canada by KinoSmith when I was working there.
The nap was important because we had a very busy evening of back-to-back-to-back shorts screenings at the Redstone Cinemas, which are quite far from the centre of things. There was also a car accident on the highway on our way, which, combined with the beginning of rush hour, led to a considerable delay for us and for our filmmakers trying to make their own way out there. The press line for Shorts Program 4 began at 5:30pm with the screening at 6:30pm, while the press line for the Animation Spotlight began at 6:15 with the screening at 7:00pm. Then we had a press line at 8:30pm for a 9:30pm screening of Shorts Program 3.
Getting back from the Redstone was also a bit of a challenge. Luckily, all four of us from the Film Office Shorts team were able to squeeze into a car sent by the Press Office to pick up our shorts publicist Susan and her associate. I was back home writing this post by about 10:30pm but it had been a very long day. I think, though, that it might have been my longest, and it feels good to know that we’ve now checked in all of our filmmakers and have had a chance to spend some time with most of them.
Tomorrow is the big Director’s Brunch with Robert Redford at the Sundance Resort, about an hour’s drive south of Park City. It’s really great that ALL directors with a film in Sundance get invited, which means that short filmmakers make up probably around a third of the guests. For many filmmakers, it’s the highlight of their time here, but the logistics are also tricky. They send buses but we’ve been advised to stress the importance of being early for the pickup. Every year there are filmmakers who miss the bus and who end up taking out their frustrations on the desk volunteers in the Film Office. Hopefully it doesn’t happen this year.