Another clear, balmy, shiny Park City day...another day of the Cold From Hell. I’ve never been sick up at Sundance before, and bottom line, it bites.
I dragged myself out of bed to go see an 8:30am screening of Sergio at the Yarrow. Directed by Greg Barker, the film is the story of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s charismatic ambassador to Iraq. Handsome and charismatic, his life story brings up the age old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Following the film, I returned to my condo for a nap and then headed out to interview Barker. I’ll be posting a more in-depth look at his film over the next couple of weeks.
After Barker's interview, I popped into the New Frontiers section for a quick look around - lots of cool stuff happening in there and I'm going to try to get back later in the week. Then I mingled for a moment with filmmakers at the Press & Filmmaker reception, where I met Havana Marking, the director of Afghan Star. A fellow strawberry blonde, she and I engaged in a moment of red-head bonding while I congratulated her on her film. It's one of the few on my list that I'm probably not going to get a chance to see at the fest. While I was at Sergio that a.m., my condo-mate had gone to see Afghan Star and came back raving about it.
Next stop: the IDA party. Gorgeous house, great food, wonderful people. For more, read Eddie Schmidt’s round up of the party, complete with pics. After the IDA shin-dig, we headed over to the HBO Documentary Films dinner. As always, the HBO folk threw a classy event, with fantastic food and the crème de la crème of the doc world in attendance. HBO has many reasons to celebrate this Sundance, with a number of films playing the festival, including U.S. documentary competition films Boy Interrupted, Good Hair, Sergio, and Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech; world documentary competition films Rough Aunties and the recently acquired Burma VJ; and the documentary short I Knew It Was You.
Following the dinner, I headed down to the Temple Theatre for the premiere of Good Hair, produced by Chris Rock. It was my first time at the new venue. On the plus side, the Temple is a great theater - good sound, right size, comfy seats - all of which make for a pleasant viewing experience. On the negative side, despite the fact that it’s technically in Park City, the Temple is geographically undesirable. And like a great boyfriend who lives on the other side of the country, no matter how cute he is, at the end of the day the relationship's just not going to work. The Temple is outside of the main drag, so if you’re trying to pack in multiple screenings, you’re more likely to choose films at venues that are closer to one another.
A lot of the docs are premiering at the Temple, and to me it kind of felt like they’d been ghettoed outside of the main fest. Sundance has always been a strong supporter of non-fiction, making sure to put the docs on par with the narrative features, so I hope they look into whether or not having so many docs at the Temple affects overall attendance.
Luckily, none of that seemed to matter tonight, and the Good Hair screening was packed. Rock, executive producer Nelson George and several subjects of the film including actresses Nia Long and Tracie Thoms were in the house. The 95 min doc about African American hair culture had the audience laughing out loud, while at the same time providing insights into the global aspects of the hair business. I’ll be speaking with Rock later this week, so more to come on the film.
Chris Rock surrounded by fans after the screening of Good Hair
Good Hair subjects actresses Sarah Jones & Tracie Thoms
came to the premiere to support the film
Paul Marchand was busy this year:
he was the editor & camera op on Good Hair
and the DP and Add. Editor on Big River Man.
There were many fun parties on the agenda for the evening, but the only party I was going to was the one back at my condo with my drinking buddies NyQuil and TheraFlu. Keeping fingers crossed that tomorrow I'll feel like a normal human being again.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with this little snippet of Chris Rock that I captured with my camera at the Good Hair Q&A following the screening. He's responding to a question about why his film explored both the humorous and serious aspects of business and culture of African American hair. [NOTE TO READERS: This clip is DEFINITELY more about the audio than the video...it's just a li'l clip of video shot from my still camera).