Sundance

Hello from Utah!

The 2008 Sundance film festival begins tonight.

Kicking off the festivities is the UK film, "In Bruges," which tells the story of two hit men sent to the Flemish town of Bruges to hide out after a failed hit.

Our Connecticut-connected attendees are scheduled to arrive over the next twenty-four hours.

They are:

Mark Jude Poirier of Weston will be at Sundance for the premiere of "Smart People," his feature-film screenwriting debut.

Rob Meyer, who spent his early years in Stamford and later attended Yale, will be here with his short film, "Aquarium."

Isabel Vega, who graduated from Wesleyan University's film program, will screen her short film documentary, "La Corona (The Crown)."

Peter Glanz grew up in Westport and attended Greens Farms Academy. He will be screening his short film, "A relationship in Four Days."

Lisa Kant, an Easton native and Yale graduate, will be here for her job, assistant to the head of acquisitions at Universal Pictures.

Stay tuned for their Sundance adventures and a look inside the acclaimed film festival!

Today (it's still January 18 in Utah) marked the first full day of Sundance 2008 - a frenetic, exciting experience... our Connecticut connected filmmakers and up-and-coming film exec seemed to be getting into the spirit of things.

I checked in with Lisa Kant at about 1:30pm Mountain Time and she had already seen two movies. The gang from Universal were taking meetings in their condo and heading out for more films shortly. Next up on her agenda was "The Guitar," directed by progeny Amy Redford.

Rob Meyer took some time out of his hectic schedule to give me the lowdown on his Sundance experience thus far. He arrived Thursday morning and went to the Opening Night screening of "In Bruges" and the Sundance after-party that night. He noted that Sundance is very much living up to his expectations. That it is definitely true to its hype (definitely!)

His film's premiere this morning went very well. He reported that the turn-out was great, as was the response. A lot of people were approaching him afterwards wanting to learn more about him and his film (way to go, Rob!)

His parents came out to Utah and were really proud as they saw his film projected on the big screen for the first time. The staff here is being most welcoming.

Isabel Vega was hanging out at the filmmakers lodge on Main Street with other filmmakers and industry folk after her film's premiere this morning.

Peter Glanz is having a great time and is keeping very busy. His agents from William Morris are working on details of an option for his feature-length script.

As for me, I was saddened to learn that the rumors of U2 performing on Main Street are just that... rumors, and sadly untrue. This comes secondhand from another journalist who spoke to U2's publicist... But he (the other journalist) managed to score a ticket to their concert film, "U2 3D," tomorrow night.

Sigh.

Here's a video I took this afternoon of the affable Rob Meyer at the Tisch (NYU) at Sundance party....

Here's a photo of the Sundance 2008 poster - if I learn nothing else at this year's festival I would like to know what "film takes place" means....

Here are some shots of Main Street in Park City, the center of the action....

I had the chance to talk with Mark Poirier outside his condo in Park City today a few hours before his film, "Smart People," premiered.

One of the things Poirier spoke about was the crazy celebrity madness that Sundance attracts. It's been said that many celebrities like to live their life in the spotlight. Well, this past Friday night many of the celebrities here in Park City lived without any light as a major power outage left a large area of the city, including the celebrity-packed Main Street, in the dark for 25 minutes.

Not to worry. I suspect there was still the illumination of flashbulbs.

Lisa Kant is going to five screenings a day - often starting at 8:30am and running until after midnight - and catching parties in-between. She heads back to L.A. tomorrow.

Check out her comments on the following video -

Tatiana Tensen (pictured above) has been an amazingly helpful contact for me at the Sudance press office. Then yesterday I stopped by to say hello and it came out that she is from Connecticut. So, of course, I had to include her in my blog!

The sparkling Ms. Tensen was born in New Haven and lived in Stamford as a little girl.

Her family moved to Ohio when Tatiana was 10-years-old. But it turned out you can take the girl out of Connecticut, but you can't take Connecticut out of the girl. (Isn't that how it goes?) Since her grandparents still lived in Stamford, Tatiana idled away the summers during her teen years in Connecticut with them, enjoying the New England sound and outdoor activities.

They sold their house in 2003 but Tatiana's Aunt and Uncle still live in New Canaan and the family regularly gathers there for holidays and other get-togethers, most recently at Easter last year.

Tatiana lives in Park City three months a year working for the Sundance film festival, which she calls, "The greatest company in the world." The rest of the year she moves from place to place working in marketing and publicity for other organizations, including the Tribeca film festival in New York City.

Come back to Connecticut anytime!

The festival has crossed into it's second half now. Most of Hollywood has left and it becomes a different festival. My guess is you won't see any additional images of Paris Hilton on Main Street at this year's event. Now it's much more about the films.

Tickets to screenings will be easier to come by from here on out. The crazed nature of things will boil down to a slow simmer with lots of bleary-eyed filmmakers and event volunteers roaming the venues in a haze.

Mark Poirier is back in Weston. But before he left, he emailed me to say the premiere of his film, "Smart People," was "amazing." The audience gave the film a standing ovation.

Wesleyan grad Isabel Vega got some great news Tuesday. Her film, "La Corona (The Crown)," has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Documentary!

We have an appointment to meet, so you should see video of her on this blog in the next couple of days.

Stay tuned....

I caught up with Rob Meyer (pictured above) to see how his Sundance experience is going.

A week in and Mr. Meyer is taking it a bit easier. Can't keep up the all-nighters forever. He has been passing up the late night screenings and parties the last couple of nights and took in some skiing during the day.

Rob participated in a panel, talking about filmmaking. He had expected it to be a bunch of young filmmakers like himself. Instead he was seated alongside Morgan Spurlock and Dennis Hopper!

He reported that his screenings are going well and he's meeting with (film) industry people. Everyone is excited to read his feature-length script when the writers strike is settled. Rob is wisely striking while the iron is hot. His agents at the Gersh agency are arranging meetings for him in L.A. in a couple of weeks.

His biggest surprise about Sundance?

What surprised him most was how the film industry is as accessible here as people had told him. He did not believe how easy it would be to just start talking to people.

I got to see his film, "Aquarium," today. And I found it to be a really sweet coming-of-age film that is beautifully shot on 35mm FILM, which impressed me. So many first-time films are done on digital video these days. Good going Rob!

Well, another Sundance film festival has come to an end. It has been a pleasure blogging about it for the Connecticut Post.

Isabel Vega and I ended up being unable to get together to shoot her video. Crazy logistics sabotaged us but she seems to have had a good festival and I wish her the best of luck with her film. I will be watching the Oscars and rooting for "La Corona (The Crown)," her short documentary, to win!

Mark Poirier sent an email saying it's great to be back in Connecticut but he will always remember the audience reaction to his screenwriting debut, "Smart People."

And really, that is what the Sundance film festival is about at its heart. The festival was created to give independent (unassociated with a studio) filmmakers the chance to get their films exposure, and an audience.

And while this year definitely saw the largest influx of celebrities to date - and the distraction they caused - there were a lot of new filmmakers who will always be able to view this year's festival as a marker in their careers. The point where they first felt they had made it as filmmakers.

And if a film festival can give these artists that type of boost then I say keep it coming... I suspect they will.

Thank you everyone who has followed this blog. I really appreciate the encouragement and feedback and hope to be back to blog for you here again.