Sundance Day #2

I started the day off by seeing my first Sundance film - Amreeka. I decided to buy tickets because the director is a friend of a friend, although I had no idea what to expect. I knew it was about a mother and son who immigrate to America from Palestine, but I think that description doesn't do the film justice. I thought it was really excellent - very touching, at times funny, and very well written.

Here's the cast and crew during the Q&A -


This is the crowded lobby after the screening -


After that, I checked out a panel at Queer Lounge called "Short Films - Yes, there is a Market!" I already have a few short films in distribution and will probably continue to just focus on features, although I still thought the panel was interesting. My friend Roberta Maria Monroe was the moderator; she has a book that just came out called How NOT to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer


Afterward, Roberta and some other friends got me into the afterparty for a film at Slamdance (the alternative to Sundance that is a well-respected festival in its own right) called Weather Girl.



After that, we headed out for sushi again, and then back to Roberta's condo to chill for awhile. I joined her condo mates at the Queer Lounge kick-off party (even though they had already kicked-off two days earlier), then briefly hit up the party at the Filmmakers Lodge to get some complimentary hummus and pita before heading back to my condo.


I do feel lucky to have been able to get into so many of the parties there (it isn't always easy - it pays to have friends in high places), but I did find them a tad overrated. Not a whole lot of networking seemed to be going on, although I realize every party is different and I'll definitely do the rounds again when I go to Sundance again.

Sundance Day #1

To pick up where I left off in my last post -

I went to the box office to pick up my tickets I had bought online. It isn't always easy to buy tickets to the screenings at Sundance, but I think it helped that this year was a slow year (some people said it was the economy, others thought it was the inauguration).



I had a panel to go to about Avid file formats at 2:00, but I had a little bit of free time beforehand, so after I got my tickets and bought a souvenir T-shirt, I walked around and got the lay of the land.





Sundance has several different lodge-type spots where you can go in and relax, get warm, check your email, chat, etc., so I checked them out - the Sundance House, Filmmaker Lodge, and New Frontier. The Sundance House in conjunction with Brita and Filter for Good was giving away BPA-free refillable water bottles in an effort to reduce water bottle waste during the festival. I already had three of my own in my back pack (I drink a lot of water), but these were free and said "Sundance" on them so I picked one up. The best part was that there was free Brita water at all of the theaters and lodges; each lodge had its own mini cafe and none of them even sold bottled water. Since a reported 50,000 people go to Sundance every year (I read somewhere that this figure is 5 times as many as the amount of tourists who visit Park City the whole rest of the year), that's a lot of waste reduction. And hopefully people will continue to reuse their bottles after they get home.

The Filmmaker Lodge, despite the cool name, didn't have anything too exciting going on at the moment, so I headed over to New Frontier where the panel was going to be. The space was set up like a hybrid between a night club and a modern art museum. Colored lights lit the rooms (although the room with the panel was regularly lit), and video installations and interactive computer art lined the walls. They had plenty of couches to lounge around on while you waited for whatever you needed to wait for.




Despite the visually crazy club-like appearance, the video installations provided a soothing sound backdrop (something like birds and waves from what I remember), and it was actually a very relaxing and zen sort of place to hang out. It ended up being one of my favorite places to sit and recharge in between events.

After the Avid file format panel, I walked back down main street to Queer Lounge, which is a space open to the public to come in and chat, relax, check their email, etc. like the other lodges/lounges around town (the other lodges/lounges are actually only open to the public on a space available basis. I had bought a credential that would guarantee me access, however, it was slow enough this year that you didn't need one). Queer Lounge had the benefit of having a lot of queer people there, and like a couple of the other lounges, they also hosted daily panels and nightly parties.



That evening, I went to the "Thank GLAAD it's Friday" party at the lounge, which a friend of mine got me on the list for before arriving in town.

Here's a view of main street from the balcony -



It was really crowded inside and not totally conducive to talking to people.


After that, a group of us lesbos headed out for sushi.


After that, we finagled ourselves to be somebody's +1 for the film programmers party at the Filmmaker Lodge that night. I hung out with my lesbo friends, but was a little disappointed that there didn't seem to be a whole lot of networking going on.


At any rate, we stayed out late and had fun; it was an all around eventful day.

Out of the Closet and into the Movies

The past ten days I've been busy going to screenings and parties at Outfest, where Butch Jamie made its premiere last year. Since the festival is in L.A., Outfest is really the best GLBT festival in terms of networking - you get to meet film distributors, network executives, producers, other filmmakers, actors, crew, etc. And every night of the week there's a party!


Here are some pics of the colorful spreads from opening night (I feel like those ladies who take photos of the dining room table at the holidays. I guess when you get older some things start to make sense).




Since I didn't have a film in the festival this year, I've been promoting Butch Jamie's DVD release, which is scheduled for November 4th. I also met up with Wolfe Video to do a photo shoot for the cover art. The other actors, including Howard the cat, will all have separate photo shoots since they're in Upstate New York and we'll Photoshop them in depending on how it all looks. Howard is already becoming the star - what I wore, (it couldn't be black because he is black), what my arms were doing, what my face was doing, how I sat (can you slouch down a little so we'll be able to see the cat?) all revolved around him. It reminded me of how Jamie might feel when she shoots her next movie with Howard in Heterosexual Jill.

I also went to see several movies this year, including the much anticipated adaptation of Sarah Waters' Affinity. The two other movies based on her novels, Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, were so much better that I was disappointed with this one. The movie isn't bad, but it's not great either.


My favorite this year was the newly restored Word is Out, a late 1970s documentary about gays and lesbians that'll be making its way to DVD soon. Despite the fact that the documentary is 95% sit-down interview and was more than two hours long, I wasn't bored at all (which is saying a lot, considering my attention span and long movies). In addition to the great 1970s kitch value, the humor and honesty of everyone's stories in a time when the closet was a much more populated place made it really fascinating to watch.


It was also interesting for me to learn that the film was considered funny when it came out 30 years ago - I thought a lot of the humor came with time (and some of it did - the music, outfits, interior design, chain smoking, mid-day drinking, and the P.O. Box listed at the end of the movie to mail in audience members' comments were all amusing reminders of the past), but it turns out that most of it was timeless. Even then, when positive portrayals of gays and lesbians on-screen were rare, it seems that we had the ability to laugh at ourselves.