I'm here. Sundance. Just completed my second full day of pounding the pavement, watching screenings and panels, shmoozing, getting confused for a celebrity (bunch of little girls, "Were you in that dog movie????"), getting rejected from private parties, getting put "on the list" for private parties, and bonding with non-film people.
As I'm here basically alone until the 20th (when my students arrive from Kansas), I've spent a lot of time alone sipping coffee thinking about the whole thing. Feelings are very mixed. Excited to be a part of such a huge event for the film industry, inspired by the stories that other documentary filmmakers are telling, ashamed that I'm not at a big party tonight (still haven't mastered the whole shmoozing thing with industry folks, instead I went home early to my hotel room in SLC), relieved that I'm not at a big party tonight (I'm exhausted and might not have made the way back after dancing and/or drinking), anxious about the possible meeting I may have with a big studio executive, disgusted by the pettiness of the entire Hollywood machine, and hopeful that I'll emerge from this whole thing with more contacts and wisdom.
Yesterday I got all the group tickets for me and the delegation from Ottawa Univeristy. Got a sense of the lay of the land in Park City. And then saw "Nollywood Babylon", which I highly recommend, at the Sundance Resort, a good 50-minute drive south of Park City Beautiful resort, gorgeous night with big stars in the sky, where they should be (more on that later).
Today started with a luncheon that I was given access to by a new friend who works for the MPAA (film rating board). Drew got me on "the list" for a private gathering of the Creative Coalition. Apparently this is a group of industry insiders who are trying to channel their energy to make the world a better place. The theme was on education and I ended up spending quite a bit of time with the main honoree (a middle school science teacher from Oregon and his wife) who is one of the "national teachers of the year" and travels around the US for a year talking about education. He was inspiring. There was also a former principal of an elementary school in California who was being honored and was interviewed for the group with one of her former students . . . Maria Carey's new husband. This is where it got weird, although I LOVED meeting with the "real people" including an activist from San Francisco and the main rep from the event sponsor ING (who was the primary speech writer for Colin Powell for years), I found the celebrity worship nauseating. I will admit to being star struck (thus the photos in this blog entry), but the way in which celebrities are treated in this town starts to wear on you after a while. How many times have I heard someone giddily yelling "Hey its _______!" and that person getting swooped into some building surrounded by security and photographers. It gets to the point where you discover that many people in town are here to see the celebrities, be part of the cool scene, spend obscene amounts of money, and look down on others. It makes me want to run away from the whole idea of EVER showing my work at festivals and creating a system outside of this one. Maybe not the worst idea . . . Hmmmmmmm.
I spent the rest of the day roaming the streets, primarily alone, and attending a panel.
But even with all of this disillusionment, I have still met some very interesting people (mostly outside of the industry) who will likely be great connections for the grassroots distribution of "The Red Tail". So who am I to complain?
Tonight, I just need a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I have tickets for two films that I'm really looking forward to seeing and they're screening in Salt Lake City, so I'll have a day off from Park City. Hopefully that will be just what I need to get back in the game on Monday.
It has been an amazing 10 days in Park City, Utah. "We Live in Public" won best Documentary, much to my delight (loved the film), had interesting conversations with people from all over the world and became reinspired to continue growing and learning as a filmmaker. I swear, every film I watched I started thinking of ways to integrate aspects of it into my next film. So what is that next film??? So many ideas, some more serious than others, but all under wraps for the time being. I've committed myself to 6 months of retooling before launching into a new project. Not only for the sake of getting "The Red Tail" launched, but also to experiment a bit with my own vision and grow as an artist. Needing time to let the things I've learned in the last few years marinade before launching into the next endeavor. 
I'm surprised that I've only run into a couple of MN folks, including Sheryl Mosely (picture of us in front of the Egyptian Theater) from the Walker. I'm going back to MN and encouraging anyone who wants to make a career of film to come to Sundance 2010 to make the connections that will help our MN film community grow. Overall, being a fly on the wall here at Sundance, I have witnessed the good, the bad, and the ugly of the film industry. Inspired by new technology for telling stories to larger audiences around the world, annoyed by the Hollywood system, and pleased to be a part of this international dialogue and experiment called documentary film. Hopefully my students from Ottawa University learned a bit too. :-)
