Sundance Virgin
BY JENIECE TORANZO PARK CITY, USA — SUNDANCE 2007 — I have never been to Sundance before. Yep. I’m a Sundance virgin. This year I got the opportunity to go. Yesterday was our first day in Park City. The place is amazingly beautiful! The weather is very nice. Surprisingly, it’s not as cold as I thought. Knock on wood- real wood that is. There is a lot of lumber here. And, a little snow but, at least so far, not too much cold. This is nothing compared to New York! Now that’s some cold weather. The streets aren’t as crowded as I thought they would be either. Especially since it’s Sundance! Hellllooo….where is everybody? I mean come on, I always thought Sundance as like the NBA or the NFL for filmmakers.
So far, I’m not gonna lie, it’s not exactly what I had expected Sundance to be like. I guess I thought it was going to be a bigger deal than it is. I kind of thought it was going to be more Hollywood-ish with all the glitz and glamour. Although, it’s not exactly what I had pictured, I am still having a great time. I am learning by watching films. And as a filmmaker that is what it is all about. After we saw some short films, I have more confidence in our films and our skills. I was not real impressed with the 10 short films that we have seen so far. The ones that stand out in my mind are Kohl Glass' DER OSTWIND, a powerful short entitled ZARIN, and MAGNETIC POLES. I loved the animation in DER OSTWIND, the cinematography and color in ZARIN and the storyline in MAGNETIC POLES. The others were rather disappointing to me.
Today, we had the opportunity to go to the AOL party for the pre-launch of NANKING. The event was filled with industry people mingling with cast and crew. It was interesting to watch everyone trying to build interest in the film they finished quite some time ago. We are in the same place now with BAD TIMING an our documentary VOICE OF AN AFRICAN NATION. We finished principal photography in September, we're in post-production now ... and THEN we have the real work of selling our films. We watched it happening last night. While we there, Nick and I were the camera crew, Mike did unit photography, while Pam and Cyndi did the interviewing. The whole experience was amazing and worth it. Okay, so let’s do it again. Ready…. Aim…. and Shoot!