Sundance: The End!

Brent's piece To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given (pictured), which was unveiled in it's first incarnation at Sundance 2012, seemed to get a little lost in the shuffle of the New Frontier group show. Mostly the soundspace (which was shared by two incredibly loud video pieces, one with a subwoofer that at times was known to shake the walls!) made hearing the quieter, treble-y rantings of Brent's voice disappear through the beautiful wooden phonograph horns....this would be a shame if the piece didn't already have a long life of exhibition in front of it- on both coasts!

Speaking of which, Sean Uyehara, of The San Fran Film Society (condolences on their recent loss), interviewed Brent while in Utah about the sculptural video that we displayed! The interview (here!) is pretty spectacular and  gets to the heart of what the artwork is all about...a great big thanks for that lovely interview! And, by the way, if you are not familiar with Sean he is the best/newest addition to my list of film person crushes, what a hilariously wonderful human being!

Sundance: Things I Totally Missed, People I Saw

With all of the running around that Sundance brings you end up missing a ton of stuff. And seeing a ton of people. And you just generally enter a weird haze of darkened movie theaters and inhuman waking hours! There were a bunch of film-folk I met out in Utah that I really loved, and a lot of work that I missed out on seeing, both of which I want to recognize in some way!

I didn't get a chance to see any of the shorts programs but...I DID get the chance to see possibly the BEST short: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (above) by the British based This Is It Collective. A charming little song with a dark cute style that reminds us to think creatively until the bitter end...! I met some of the minds behind this as they rocked party after party, even leading a sing along on a post-Awards Party bus from what I hear!

Terence Nance's film (with the much coveted title of) An Oversimplification of Her Beauty was one I got shut out of in a wait list line- even after the sweetly nice director tried his best to get me in...! An experimental portrait of modern love, this one looks like a pretty tale that could make for a great story, hope I get to see it eventually!

Brent somehow only saw two films at Sundance....and one of them was The Pact (short trailer above). Which he really liked! Which is weird since he doesn't really like horror! Even despite my efforts to share my love of the genre with him! But maybe it had something to do with Brent going ghost hunting with the film's director, Nicholas McCarthy, and also with Don Hertzfeldt & David Zellner...? I don't know what that was all about but I think it has something to do with an online Sundance related tv show? More info when I understand....Horror-wise I also missed v/h/s (a unique outline of a story about men hired to retrieve film footage met with a dead body and a mound of videotapes, each tape made up of horrific shorts by different directors) and Room 237 (a compilation of conspiracy theories about the movie The Shining!).

I also had two separate, funny encounters with two unrelated, Danish directors both named Mads; one the director of The Ambassador (who sat in front of me in a movie theater and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw reading this here blog!!!! Which lead to me accosting him in my own not-so-suave way of course...) and the other (a festival award winner with his feature Teddy Bear) who nearly sat on me at an overcrowded party where I had a prime couch seat! Yes, the fun, (literally) small world of Sundance! And, also, I'd like to apologize to (the incredibly beautiful, stunning, talented, mega film star) Juliette Binoche: Brent Green interrupted you at that festival programmer house party because he a) didn't know who you were and b) assumed that since you were so pretty you would have no trouble finding a person to talk to who wasn't his friend that he also wanted to talk to....again, Sundance: a microcosm of film unreality!

Sundance: A Cultural Overview of a Film Fest

Every film festival I have been to has it's own culture: Rotterdam favored a sweeping international landscape with a focus on the artistic and the auteur, True/False a homegrown socially progressive the-most-awesome-summer-camp feel, New Horizons promoting Polish cultural betterment and the finest of new classic independent directors and so on. Sundance too has it's own distinct culture but in a really strange way. This independent cinema orgy began with an industry feeding frenzy, people from the coasts pouring in, taking notes and surveying the landscape of what is being offered and in turn what they were willing to offer certain films. This was then followed by a kind of local push and volunteer push, Utah natives coming out to support the festival and (the large army of) volunteers being a little alleviated to allow for a movie or event or two. Then, the fest winds down with a weekend party leaning crowd of skiers, college kids and just plain film lovers out to see what all the fuss is about. Overall a complete change in vibe as Sundance progressed over it's nearly two week period!

As for the other parts of the festival... Getting into screenings was a task, usually rewarding and sometimes frustrating, mostly you would rely on arriving at the theater two hours early, getting a number for a spot in a wait list line, returning a half hour before the film to the numbered spot and then slowly fill with anticipation as ticket holders filtered in and empty seats are revealed. If you were able to buy advanced tickets a few weeks before the fest you were given a time slot in which to purchase them but reliable sources were met with many sold out screenings even then! After a few days I understood that screenings would also have a certain amount of tickets released a day or so prior to the show giving another chance to the slow ticket getters (points at self)...Lesson learned: just getting tickets to screenings can be a job unto itself at Sundance, diligence is required!

The free citywide bus system and the Sundance FF shuttles would take you on loops of Park City and the outskirts that held many of the festival's venues housed inside everything from multiplexes, high schools, local gyms, synagogues, ski lodges and even a local library! I do have to say the whole community opens it's doors for this generative event and the genuine smiles of every resident of this town made even the most tiring of 9am film screenings a pleasant experience!

And then there are the parties....heavily catered and alcohol laddened, these events were all a little on the club-like side (except for the Shorts Awards Party whose location at a local bowling alley allowed for a nicer feel of happy gourmet pizza eating pool playing fun time and for the many house parties where homemade food, cold beers and hot hottubs with friends made for a nice post-film calmness)...the sponsorships for this huge celebrity attended event is also on the odd side, a thing I never really have experienced before. Constant bling and swag were thrown about in hopes to catch a famous handling the items in a publicity shakedown (tons of photographers were everywhere all the time in a serious controlled media chaos)...I can't complain though, I am perfectly content with my Sundance/Brita Nalgene bottle and complimentary extraordinarily functional Timberland filmmaker boots! ...but all this make up? I could do without...

And, lastly, SNOW! It snowed so often and so beautifully that the town was blanketed nearly every day making for treacherous driving but beautiful scenes! O, and I am also told there was skiing somewhere...up a mountain maybe? I dunno? Ok everybody, so there is a brief recap of what Sundance 2012 was all about, a huge undertaking in the name of American Independent Film! (pictures of outlying areas including the Bonneville Salt Flats & the Great Salt Lake- where the salt water is so dense it is made crazy reflective, visited on our final day in Utah! This place makes me feel like an extra in the pioneer wonderland of McCabe and Mrs. Miller! A feeling I couldn't be happier about!)

Sundance Review: Kid-Thing

Obviously I am saving the best for last. First, a disclaimer: I first met the Zellner Brothers when Brent & I were out in Northern California installing a project in a museum and the Austin Texas based Zellner's were in town at the same time for film festival related events. I didn't talk to them too much but we all ate burritos together, watched a bank get robbed (I swear!) and ambled the streets under the direction of Cinemad's Mike Plante. After this encounter (did I mention they were wearing matching track suits?) I was fascinated so I sought out all I could find by them starting with their first feature film, Goliath (about a man who loses his cat and his wife, finding someone to displace his rage on like a true American Texan!). After the hilarious shock & awe of that film, I went on to watch all of their shorts I could find, each a creative bitter comedy in a voice unlike any other. Wow.

Kid-Thing, the Zellner's second feature, was so fucking awesome that I am really confused as to why this film is not the god damn immediate smash hit of the festival! The fable of a little girl, Annie, who is filled with inexplicable rage acts as a parable for our own country, fearing the unknown, acting with brute force, and searching for a way to be a human when no real definition for such exists, Kid- Thing is not only a perceptive narrative but also a beautifully constructed film. The details that went into creating this story- the lush imagery, the complex sound design, even applying their signature off kilter, self styled comedic rhythms to the pacing/editing of this dark cinematic journey- made this film a classic Zellner spectacle on a whole new level!

I really cannot describe how perfect and layered this film is, even down to the Edvard Munch/Alice Neel/Judy Blume like marketing (pin-on-my-sweater & card pictured here, along w/a photo of the Zellner's at a Q&A) that is so, so fitting to the adolescent symbolist figures Kid-Thing constructs. I also cannot describe the scenes of Annie exploding bananas, squashing grubs and tearing at tree trunks with the depth that this little girl brings to this difficult role, nor can I capture the essence of how lost and sad her life is (especially given her slow, well meaning, childlike father trying to better himself but directionless at the same time, a role poignantly portrayed by a sort of Lennie-like Nathan Zellner). Lastly I can't describe the fairytale tone that this film takes on, teaching a lesson on human kindness, fear and compassion in the wake of America's increasingly dark days. The film makes me as an audience member ache to help Annie, bringing out the desire for human connection that is falling behind in today's world, brought to us in a technological medium that is also tied to the very disconnect we have between eachother. Kid-Thing will remind you that you are not just a passive audience member, you are a thinking, acting human being: SEE THIS FILM. Dammit!

Sundance Review: The House I Live In

A documentary on the American war on drugs, The House I Live In is a great premise for a rarely discussed topic. Your basic doc outline (interviews, voiceover, archive footage/photos etc.) the film itself was not much but the tackling of such a layered issue and the eventual conclusions drawn were shocking, stunning and worth muddling through the Ken Burns' style learning experience. I guess the crux of The House I Live In was that a systematic vilifying of drug users in this country has allowed for an instant scapegoat, a pattern taking on the burden of the flaws in our capitalistic American dream, especially along a racial divide. The entire time I was watching it though I kept thinking of this fantastic article I read recently about the legalization of drugs in Portugal, thinking of the stark differences between our own ways of harsh enforcement and the driving force behind them as opposed to the ways other countries manage their drug problems; America focusing on money while other nations focus on the people. As a film The House I Live In wasn't perfect but as it unveiled the hidden agendas of the drug war making me want to become more educated on this clandestine topic that truly shapes our nation for the worse. (Picture of a patriotic parking lot barricade which there are many of out here in traffic ladened Sundance and which I thought was mildly fitting for this post!)

Sundance Shameless Self Promotion

It has been a wild ride with the film/sculpture piece out here at Sundance! From people manhandling the hell out of the sculpture in terrifying, terrifying ways (to the point I had to leave the room today when I saw a man BEND STEEL to mold the sculpture into what he wanted to see! The EMPAC director was right!) to the unexpected positive response from viewers, To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given has had a lovely stay at New Frontier.

The ever so darling Sean Uyehara, from the San Francisco Film Society, wrote a little piece about the piece over here on Fandor! Speaking of which, a selection of Brent's short films are also available for a limited time on the hi-def wonder, curated online streaming videospace of Fandor, enjoy! Now, to put the sculpture back into the truck and take it back home...for now at least! Will be sure to keep everyone posted on the next place we will be traveling with this strange, new work!

Sundance Picture Post 1/28/2012

Just as I was able to both force Brent Green into a movie theater and revel in the early morning empty shuttle bus system the festival slowly comes to an end....! I will wrap up more in the coming days but, for now, a rare photo of a Brent in a movie theater! And also, in a random act of the universe I somehow ended up on a bus today with people who hail from Schuylkill Haven, PA the very place our own film studio barn is?! A small, small Sundance world!