My third day I woke up with a sore throat. I knew I got it when I leaned toward a sick person talking at a party, and I breathed in at the exact same moment that she breathed out.
I was glad that I had gotten the weekend partying and socializing out of the way, and even though I was getting sick I was still able to make good use of my time. I started the day off by checking out the Queer Brunch, which included a continental breakfast spread and I think an open bar, sponsored by Outfest.
If you're on any of Outfest's email lists, you can easily get yourself on the list; over 500 people were there, and according to one gay man "it's the whole reason to go to Sundance." There was even a DJ and gift bags for everybody (speaking of which, I was told that Sundance used to have a lot more swag (i.e. free promo items), but two years ago they had a big campaign called "Focus on Film" and a lot of the promotional giveaways died down).
After the brunch, I took the shuttle to main street to catch the last part of a panel at New Frontier called "Models and Experiments in Indie Distribution." After that, another panel started called "How to Do More for Less," which talked about working with HD.
After that, I walked up the street to Slamdance. Last year I was a grip for a queer short film that was premiering at Slamdance this year called Dish. I ran into the director at a party and got a free ticket to the screening, so I went to check it out.
I wasn't planning to go to Slamdance while I was in town but I was so glad that I did. The festival started as a "for filmmakers by filmmakers" endeavor, at a time when Sundance was becoming more and more commercial. It's now recognized as one of the top ten film festivals in the U.S., and it offers edgy, controversial, creative, experimental, risk-taking, and innovative programming that you don't see at a lot of festivals.
Slamdance is a very sought-after place to screen your work (I personally have been rejected twice) and despite the do-it-yourself spirit of the festival, I was surprised by the ultra no-frills atmosphere. The venues were more like classrooms, with 40 standalone seats and a makeshift screen that was slightly bigger than your average big screen TV. But I loved the energy of the place, and I really enjoyed the short films I saw - each one had such a fresh artistic view.
After the screening, I looked through their program and was able to buy a ticket for a screening that night for a controversial documentary called Graphic Sexual Horror.
One film programmer described the film as - "A journey into the absolute most outer reaches of the BDSM experience, this documentary about the Insex.com website is both repulsive and mesmerizing, often at the same time. As brave a piece of filmmaking as I have ever seen submitted to Slamdance."
I liked the film, although watching it with an open mind (if it's not open, you won't last through the first 5 minutes; a few people walked out) produces a great degree of ambivalence, as there were numerous ethical questions raised and toyed with. But I suppose you could say that provoking that ambivalence is an indicator of a great film.
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