The 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Seeing as I spend a good amount of my life watching movies and interviewing actors, I thought I’d get a head start in 2012 by going to the Sundance Film Festival, where many of the films that usually draw attention throughout the year begin their journey.

With the changing media and entertainment landscape, film festivals are proving their value and that’s another reason to keep covering them. A major one is, of course, being a film fan. And as a cinema-lover, I’ve always wanted to go to Sundance, the biggest festival for independent film.

 
Ever since 1978 when Sundance served up films like Deliverance, A Streetcar Named Desire and Mean Streets, the festival has given us some of the most compelling reasons to love cinema and movie-making. Each year the fest selects 200 films for exhibition from more than 9 000 submissions. It will be my first time covering the event and I cannot wait!

It’s also my first time to Utah, and so I admit packing for the occasion proved to be its own little mini-drama. Having been to Cannes for the past 5 years, I like to think I’ve figured out a good mix of comfortable-but-rocking looks for an eleven-day film event, filled with attending premieres and chasing stars. But that’s the South of France. Having never experienced the kinds of conditions that Yahoo Weather shows await me in Utah, I have been a little freaked out over that age-old girl-problem of what to wear. Thank goodness for my snowboarder friend, Ashley who deserves a best supporting actress nomination for sorting me out with a Cannes a la snow-bunny-chic look.

 
There are a number of films and events I’m looking forward to, but of particular interest is the film opening the World Cinema Documentary Competition called Searching for Sugar Man, about two South Africans who set out to find their musical hero, 70’s singer-songwriter, Rodriguez.

 
Under African Skies, the documentary about Paul Simon’s groundbreaking album with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Graceland, by Joe Belinger (who gave us Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) also makes its debut at this year’s fest, kicking off a year’s long celebration commemorating the 25th anniversary of Simon’s recording.

There are also going to be some great music events around the festival – like performances from Jason Mraz, Theophilus London an Gary Clark Junior at the Bing Bar.

I’ll be blogging daily, so hope you’ll stick around until the closing credits role.