Sundance 2007 – one day early

I’ve arrived the first weekend, I’ve stayed through the closing night party, but I’ve never gotten to Sundance a day early. It might be the best thing I do this whole trip. I fled LA Wednesday morning on 2 hours sleep and a California Pizza Kitchen tuna salad. Sundance starts at the Delta terminal. Everyone’s chatting about the movies they’re going to see, they made, they programmed, they saw at a super secret special location, but didn’t like that much. It’s time to turn on until flight time. I picked up an LA Times and was thrilled to see Kenneth Turan’s pre-fest coverage. He only mentioned one short in the piece, “irresistible short doc (The Fighting Cholitas)…” I got chills! By the time we loaded up I was ready to pass out. I slept most of the one-hour flight with my noise reducing headphones keeping out the voices of the publicists chattering behind me.

Got in, ate dinner at the Vietnamese place off Main Street (tasty but a little overpriced – 10$ for rice noodles!?), went to Albertson’s for essentials (a first day Park City must!) worked and went to bed with the intent of being ready and rested for Thursday.

One incredible toxic soup selection at Albertson’s.

I’ve got a pretty solid schedule of movies to see and parties to hit and today was the just the beginning. Late start was a good thing because I ran into the entire Fighting Cholitas crew at the hospitality suite at the Marriott Headquarters. We hooked up and went to opening reception of New Frontier on Main. It’s in the basement of the Main Street Mall in the old location of the Digital Center and showcases new technologies.

Met the whole crew of a new doc called Official Rejection at a shuttle stop. Can’t miss them. They’re all sporting hats with their logo, the title of the film in festival laurels. The film is about the craziness that goes on as filmmakers try to get their films into festivals.

The Official Rejection team was in high spirits and it wasn’t just the altitude!

And for the first time (drum roll please) I made it to the opening night movie! Hooray! I was surprised the Press & Industry screening wasn’t full. But I was glad I got there early to get an unobstructed view for Brett Morgen’s new doc Chicago 10.

Tomorrow morning is an early one. 8:30 screening of the doc shorts.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 3:07 am and is filed under Film Festival Reports, Originals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.