When BBCi FILMS said they wanted an idiot's guide to the Sundance Film Festival, they came to me. There are no hard feelings. In fact, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the licence fee payers out there for jetting me out to the winter wonderland that is Park City, Utah. Yessiree Bob (that's Mr Redford to you), I'm living on Easy Street. For ten days anyway, I get to lap up the mountain scenery, watch movies, and meet movie buffs. Like Julie Andrews said: these are a few of my favourite things. (I also like jam and tea, but three out of five ain't bad.)
The film fever that sweeps across this canyon town each year had me in its grip from the moment I stepped off the plane. On the airport shuttle into Park City, I was immediately engaged in conversation with a budding director - I say budding, in the sense of "failed". His short film was rejected for this year's line-up, but decided to make the journey out to Sundance in support of his friend, Zach Braff, whose feature-length romantic comedy, Garden State, is in competition here. You may know Zach from TV comedy Scrubs, but it turns out he's also a promising writer/director. Plus, he gets to snog Natalie Portman in Garden State - for what that's worth.
At festival headquarters on Thursday, I found myself in more esteemed company, namely veteran film critic and prodigious beard Kenneth Turan (the US equivalent of Barry Norman). It wasn't exactly a pleasant encounter; in fact it was hardly an encounter at all. You see, I'd been waiting patiently to talk to a press assistant about the weekend screenings when Mr Turan strode up behind me and threw a question at said assistant straight over my head (he's very tall). I wouldn't have minded so much, only I was in mid-sentence. But I guess that's showbiz, folks. Sometimes the critics are as egocentric as the talent, and I should know. In this case, I knew only that I was not worthy and so I stood aside.
"TUSSLING WITH ANOTHER BEARDED BADASS"
My self-esteem would take another blow that evening. Surfing documentary Riding Giants opened this year's festival and I joined the photo hounds in the press line-up, enduring buttock-trembling temperatures to snap the arrival of director Stacy Peralta and the surfer dudes who are the subject of the film. Like, who cares anyway, dude? But there I was armed with my dinky digi-cam while all around me wielded lenses you could use to club a small family of baby seals to death. Such notions of violence invaded my thoughts as I found myself tussling with another bearded badass to get my place at the front of the line-up, waving his lens around like I should be impressed. OK, I admit it: his equipment was impressive, and I didn't fail to notice the look of mild disdain as he caught sight of my itsy bitsy gadget. I blushed with overwhelming shame, developing a serious case of lens envy.
Still, I managed to get a few snaps of Stacy and the gang when they finally decided to show, and as it happens, a shutter speed faster than light wasn't much help to my hirsute nemesis when Sally Field made a surprise arrival. Treating it like a military campaign of shock and awe, she zipped down the carpet in a flash, her hat pulled firmly down over her ears. We only realised who she was when she had gone, and murmurs of "Was that Sally Field?" and "Hey, that was Sally Field." rippled down the line-up.
Inside the theatre, I finally got my money shot. The Sundance Kid himself, festival honcho Robert Redford, was met with a hearty round of applause as he came out on stage to deliver his welcome speech and introduce the film. Up front of the theatre, I found myself in spitting distance of The Golden One, and, caught in his direct eyeline, I couldn't help being overcome with quiet awe.
Bob, as I now call him, made light of the idea that Sundance was somehow becoming commercialised, and in Blairesque fashion elicited easy applause with the assertion that this is, still is, and has always been a festival for "the people". He rounded off saying that he was due at a book signing with Harvey Weinstein. Cue: gentle laughter, followed by deferential applause.
Leaving the theatre wrapped in the reflected warmth of Bob's golden glow, I stopped off on "Historic Main Street" at a bijou burger shack where a young director somehow sniffed my press credentials over the pungent aroma of my chilli cheese dog (mental note: never combine fermented dairy products with jalapeño peppers). He made the approach and told me his name was Joshua Bee Alafia. I believed him, but he gave me his card to prove it, and then made a pitch for his short film, Wet Dreams And False Images. Naturally, being British, and on top of that, a representative of the BBC, I drew back.
Actually, Alafia's film is not a sticky probe into the porn industry, but an examination of the art of airbrushing. It's also a contender for the Sundance Online Film Festival, a new addition to this year's programme. I promised Alafia that I would try and get to a screening, but that there's so much going on out here, I'm not sure I'll make it. Day One on the festival circuit and I've already become a blagger...
Stella delivers her next postcard from Sundance on Monday morning.
