With the 2010 Sundance Film Festival at a close, I have to reflect back and realize that it was quite the experience. Having never covered anything as substantial as this and taking the risk to jump far out of my comfort zone, it was quite the opportunity and I am glad that I chose to cover it with a few baby steps rather jumping headfirst into the waters.
All in my first day at the festival I managed a great Q&A with director Cordell Barker discussing his animated entry, Runaway. I was lucky enough to gain entrance to The Gen Arts Lounge, as this was a great way to get out of the cold for a while and get my hands on a groovy little engraved mojito mint muddler.
Later that night I attended an invitation-only party, The 7 Fresh Faces in Film, sponsored by The Gen Arts Lounge and hosted by Malin Akerman (Watchmen and Couples Retreat) who was also featured in two Sundance entries herself (Happythankyoumoreplease and The Romantics). This party was to honor and recognize new up and comers who were all featured in Sundance films this year — Shawn Ashmore (Frozen), Amy Ferguson (Douchebag), Shiloh Fernandez (Skateland), Zoe Lister-Jones (Armless), Zoe Kazan (happythankyoumoreplease), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), and Kevin Zegers (Frozen) — in the Sky Lodge located on Main Street.
While I was only able to catch 11 films this year, I did manage to make a list of which of those films were better than the others. Some have misread into these two articles and I am not trying to pass judgment that these are in fact the best and worst of Sundance this year. I simply took what I saw and compared them all against each other.
Unfortunately, I was not able to see any films throughout the week but finally managed to catch my final film, Winter’s Bone, after waitlisting at the Rose Wagner Theater in downtown Salt Lake City. After bearing witness to this amazingly tense and terrific thriller set in the Ozarks, I would have to say that if I was to make a new list of my favorites, this would definitely wrangle its way into the top five and push the dismal Southern District rightly off the list completely.
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