SFF 09 Part 1

In keeping with tradition, I feel compelled to write something about the Sundance film festival this year. However, this year is different in that I am only working a few shifts, primarily to maintain my alumni status as a volunteer so that I can work at my preferred venue in the future.

I'm also not seeing any movies. This is because with my part-time job shifts and Sundance shifts, I don't want to be away from Bailey any more than that. It's been hard to not let myself get too excited, but in the whole scheme of things, one year of missing movies won't kill me. It's always fun to just be a part of it and I usually only see a small portion of the over 100 films showing in those 10 days anyway.

So last weekend were my first two shifts. I was back at the Broadway instead of the Rose Wagner and I enjoyed the faster pace of it there. The managers brought to our attention that it's the one of two theaters at Sundance that has 3 screens running movies so it definitely has some of the most traffic. And I like that about it.

The first night the only thing of note to me was the Shorts program. A lot of cast and crew came for several of the shorts selected. One of them featured a young girl, my guess was that she was about 10 or 11 years old. She sat out of the theater waiting for the show to finish to back in for the Q & A afterwards. What impressed me about her was that she was sitting in the lobby reading the book "The Shack," something that's been on my reading list a few months now and seemed heavy content for a young girl. She was sitting out on the movie because the other shorts in the collection were more of the R-rated type while hers was suitable for most audiences. I watched her walk in when the show was finished and she carried herself so well, I immediately thought she must be a very bright little girl.

The second night I worked until almost 2 am. The midnight movie had already gained a lot of popularity despite only being shown once before so far at the festival. Then we got word that a very VIP person was coming to the screening. Security kept calling to notify us of how far away they were and to make the request that the theater be seated already so that they could sit in the back to be there for the Q & A afterwards. So after seating them, we calmly waited and then in walked Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon with a large entourage. I'm not a big fan of hers, but it was definitely fun to see her.

I just have one more shift to work this weekend and it will be over again until next year.