Highlights from the rest of my Sundance...thanks to all who helped out with interviews, information and invites! See you at the next fest.

Cheers,
Tamara Krinsky
www.iklipz.com
DOCUMENTARY magazine

MONDAY
Monday was one of those magical Sundance days filled with good movies, timely shuttles, fun interviews and great parties.

Despite the late night wine adventures of the night before, I only snoozed a few times before dragging myself out of bed and hitting the road. There was a press screening for FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO at 9:00am at Holiday Village that I wanted to make. Luckily, the transpo gods were with me and a bus showed up at the Main Street terminal just as I ran up the stairs. (See wrap up entry for thoughts on the film).

When I left the theater, I bumped into a friend who handed me an unexpected ticket to jump into the 11:30am screening of Justin Lin’s FINISHING THE GAME. I was scheduled to interview the director & cast later in the week; now I’d actually be able to talk intelligently about their film. (See wrap up entry for thoughts on the film).

As I was leaving the theater, I got a call from my friend Liz Warner, a commentator for indie 103.1 in Los Angeles. She was in Park City for two days doing broadcasts for the station for the show Jonesy’s Jukebox, and invited me over to the Stella Artois patio to watch. We ended up shooting part of an interview with John Cusack & Steve Buscemi (thanks Liz & Mark!). We’ll have video goodies soon.

The rest of the day consisted of attending & shooting various parties around town, including the Picturehouse party at Zoom, the indieWire/San Francisco Film Festival anniversary party where Cara Mertes (Director, Documentary Film Program) shared her thoughts with us about this year’s fest, and the [ida]/A&E/ Heineken party where we met Ashley York, the winner of the A&EIndieFilms/Heineken/[ida] Works in Progress Grant. She was understandably elated about being named the recipient of the $50,000 grant for her film AH SATAN. After stopping in for a bit at the Red Envelope party at the Premiere Lounge at the Riverhorse, we ended the night at the AOL shin dig that featured an intimate performance with the band Silversun Pickups. At their afterparty we snacked on pizza & the AOL candy bar filled with vintage movie candy faves…many come to Sundance to find sugar daddies…first time I’ve ever ended my night with one of them.

TUESDAY
I was really hoping to make it to the 8:30am screening of HOUNDOG to see what all the hubbub was about (and because I’d interviewed director Deborah Kampmeier about the project three years ago for FILMMAKER magazine when she was in the midst of trying to get it made), but after spending the night writing & working with David on cutting iklipz videos, it just didn’t happen.

Tuesday was all about filmmaker interviews. We talked with documentary directors David Stenn of GIRL 27, Laura Dunn of THE UNFORSEEN and Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold from EVERYTHING’S COOL. Also spent a very fun interlude with Justin Lin, Roger Fan and Sung Kang from FINISHING THE GAME, all of whom were excited to be back at Sundance on a project together.

In the midst of our own interview schedule, we ended up hooking up with filmfestivals.com fest 21 to jointly cover interviews with FAY GRIM’s Parker Posey and Hal Hartley and SUMMER RAIN (El Camino de los ingleses)’s director Antonio Banderas.

That afternoon we shot the Sundance Channel party at 350 Main where we ran into the exuberant team from THE SIGNAL who premiered and sold their movie the night before (at 3am!). So cool to have chatted with them at the beginning of the fest, and again after their success – such a great thing to see when people do something they love and then send it out into the universe and its received well.

After Sundance, Liz took me as her guest to a special Stella Artois tasting dinner at the Stein Erickson lodge. Each course used Stella in some way, shape or form, and was paired with a specific type of beer. Dessert? Beer flavored ice cream, of course! In addition to spotlighting culinary treats, the dinner honored the New Frontier filmmakers and both Geoff Gilmore and Shari Frilot were on hand to address the crowd about their excitement about the program this year.

Parties that night included the Queer Lounge party celebrating FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO and the Miramax party for EAGLE VS. SHARK. Fellow AFI FEST programmer Jon Bernstein, David & I ended the evening at an afterhours at a gorgeous house up in the hills of Park City.

I sat on the comfy leather couch in the beautiful house and let the last few moments of my Sundance experience wash over me (we weren’t leaving til mid-day on Wed, but the next day would be all about packing, writing, and raiding the press office for the materials we would need to finish up our pieces in LA).

Sundance 2007 was a very different kind of festival for me. Covering the event as a correspondent/producer with a camera crew is an entirely different experience than covering it as a print journalist or a festival programmer, which is how I’ve previously attended the fest. It results in talking with many more filmmakers but seeing far fewer movies. Though I was burnt out & exhausted from running around in the cold with heavy equipment (and from staying up just a tad too late most nights), I wouldn’t have minded sticking around for an extra day or two just to watch films. The good news is that due to the number of films that were actually picked up, I may get to see some of them in a theater later this year!

Thanks to the good peeps at indieWire for having us on for the festival. Not sure how long they will be keeping this blog up, but we’ll continue to post iklipz video coverage as long as they let us. If you can’t find it here, you can find the interviews and event coverage I’ve mentioned in this blog at www.iklipz.com/sundance. Previous & future festival blogging can be found on my "Jersey Red" profile on iklipz.