Last week, I registered to get my time slot for advance ticket purchase for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Don’t really think I’ll be able to go this time but here’s hoping. I had such a great time last year that I have to try. As you may know, Sundance, held primarily in Park City, Utah, is one of the world’s greatest film festivals and as it is open to the public, anyone can attend. A year ago this time I decided to stop dreaming about going and actually just get myself there. I found out years before that my old high school friend Lindy lives in UT and offered to take me around. I had been telling her for awhile that I would come and visit her so I recruited my friend Ije to go with me and finally made it all the way to Utah. You have to understand, I was alittle worried about going for a number of reasons. A black girl in Utah? Come on. Also this is Utah in January. I’m from Louisiana so what they hell do I know about cold and snow? It was all worry for nothing. It was an beautiful place to have an incredible experience.
Park City is such a cute little city, and we stayed at this great new hotel right outside of downtown. The festival has an awesome shuttle service that takes you to all the theaters in the area. Just walking around was great because there were so much activity going on connected with the festival including parties, live music, and great eateries. Also, many actors are in and out of the city promoting their films so it’s a great place to spot them (Rob Lowe was standing right in front of me! :).
I saw about five films and a collection of short films in the four days I was there, the most notable being “I Melt With You” (starring Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane, and Rob Lowe) which has just been released theaters nationwide, the coming-of-age drama “Little Birds” (my favorite), and “Here” (starring Ben Foster).
From my perspective, the majority of the audience attending Sundance are people from the film industry (We were asked so many times if we were!) and locals from Utah so we were definitely in the minority. Just standing in line waiting to get into theaters and on the shuttle, we met some many interesting people. I found out about a great “Black in Film” event that goes on at the festival every year, bringing together black filmmakers, actors, and film appreciators so I definitely would love to go back to the festival and check that out. Here’s hoping to attending Sundance again!
Think I could get up the courage to actually ski or snowboard? Now that I’ve been to Utah, never say never :)
