Sundance Film Festival 2006

January in Park City, Utah. One of the biggest and most prestigious film festivals in the US occurs in one of the country's smallest and coldest towns. I would love to have each film that I work on culminate in this kind of an event - where the crew, who has grown into a family of friends, can gather and share their film with enthusiastic audiences in a beautiful chilly-air setting, conducive to scotch-drinking and the kind of laughter that gets warm blood pumping back into your frozen cheeks.

The occasion for my attendance this year was the programming of a feature I worked on in early 2005 as an assistant editor. Journey From the Fall is an independently-financed narrative film based on the real-life experiences of Vietnam war "boat people" refugees and those who were imprisoned in North Vietnamese "re-education camps." Working on it was a great learning experience, not only in filmmaking (my first feature in post-prod), but also in a specific socio-historic subject. I made many friends and enjoyed a spirit where people really cared about the work, plus it afforded me the chance to work abroad for a week in Bangkok, Thailand. So I could not have been happier to see the film making its way into the world via Sundance. I will undoubtedly post more about the film in the future, but in the meantime, I encourage anyone to visit the official site and see the film if you have the chance.

So, on to my impressions of Sundance.

"Steer clear of the hype," was the advice one colleague recommended to me when I informed him I would be going. It's true that this event swarms with business and industry types, seeking the hot buy, that handful of films that audiences are buzzing about. Numerous celebrities attend in support of their films, attracting media coverage and showers of corporate swag. Businesses all strive to have their logos placed on or near the bodies of celebrities when the news cameras roll. Evidently, during the first weekend of the festival, there is a "giveaway tent," where attendees can visit the booths of corporate sponsors and walk away with hundreds of dollars in swag. When we arrived on Thursday night, Long Nguyen showed us a nice-looking pair of leather boots he'd scored, in addition to a canvas duffel bag in which to keep the rest of his free goodies.

Sundance has long been regarded as an "indie" film festival, where "mini-major" distributors go to pick up crowd-pleasing movies at a discount. Although there are occasionally legends of the $7,000 film being sold to a major distributor, the unwritten consensus is that films made for less than $1 million have a much harder chance of attracting attention from a buyer, because they were unable to afford the production values that movie-goers have come to expect. Since Sundance results in five or six high-profile theatrical distribution deals a year, each of whose film budgets are usually over $1 million, it has contributed to the paradigm of the "couple million" dollar independent film featuring stars who "work for scale."

As business deals go down day-by-day, gossip spreads among the after-hours parties about how much money this film or that film sold for and who was bidding. Filmmakers and their representatives become protective about information like how much their film actually cost to make. Our film was represented by a publicist and a kind of "sales agent." The sales agent was a young guy named Nguyen who told me that his job was to go to every film that had any buzz associated with it because that's where the buyers would be. He would attend the films and their after-parties and have a drink with buyers and drop our film's title into the conversation and make sure they knew when it was screening. It was wierd, but interesting, knowing that your team had this kind of operative working for it - a kind of viral marketing secret agent.

Indie filmmaking is kind of a catch-22. Like proud parents, filmmakers always want the best for their creations. Whether it be the best cinematographer, the best publicity, or the best theater to show the film in, it is always the best that money can buy. However, the concept of "indie" can be variously interpreted, as different budgets allow more or less material love to be lavished on a production. As the budgets and expenditures go up, whether the money came from a studio bank account or not, people often feel that the film becomes less of a true "independent" film, and more of a large-scale film that mimics the low-budget aesthetic or thematic content of a true independent.

I can understand why this might embitter the zero-budget DV filmmaker. At the same time, I don't think it has gotten any harder in recent years to complete small films and get them noticed than it ever was. John Cassavetes, considered by some to be a kind of godfather of American independent filmmaking, was already a successful Hollywood actor with connections and money before becoming known as a director of his own small, risk-taking films.

Although living in LA has given me a low threshold for glamour, there is a satisfaction to knowing that your product, and by extension your crew, is there on the showroom floor, sharing the spotlight with other known commodities. It's a distance marker, indicating that you may not have arrived yet, but you haven't broken down by the side of the road.

Although I ultimately did steer clear of the hype, it was not necessarily by force of will, but simply because by the last 3 days of the festival, most of the celebrity frenzy seemed to have quieted somewhat. Nevertheless, the streets, bars and shuttles were crowded with festival attendees, and each theater had crowds in front of it with people looking to buy tickets to sold out shows. Talking to fans outside of theaters or riding on the shuttles was a nice way to exchange notes or get film recommendations as well as get some background on what brought people out. Although a lot of attendees are connected to the film industry or to a particular film that has been programmed, many people are simply film enthusiasts on vacation, or people who make films of their own and volunteer at the festival. Every shuttle stop had a volunteer attendant who helped festival goers board the ride bus to get to their theaters. Many of them simply came out because they loved movies. Everyone who was approached for information was amenable to conversation and seemed curious to hear your thoughts or where you were from. I enjoyed being there with a film that brought a sense of internationalism to the table.

I finally got a link up to a photo album from the trip. Many of the best shots were taken by Pia or Santahn. You don't have to be a member to view. Just click "View Photos without Signing In."

iofilm review
Variety review
Film Threat review
Rotten Tomatoes review
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