Sundance Diary: 2012 is a Wrap!
by Richard Sheehan on January 30, 2012 in Festival Strategy
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Well, another year has gone by and Sundance 2012 is over. The festival itself was very quiet the second weekend, and, for the most part, screenings that had shown up as “sold out” earlier in the week suddenly had seats available for audiences to catch up on films. Some films though, such as the documentary”The House I Live In” was still turning away people that had waited in the wait list line.
I caught “My Best Day” on Saturday afternoon, which was a quirky little comedy with some nice performances, especially by the hysterical Ashlie Atkinson who weaves her way through each of the subplots.
Mostly my friends & I tried to see little bit of the area while it was quieter. We took the funicular up the side of a mountain into the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel for dinner on Friday night, where we saw former chief of staff and current mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel with a group of friends for the second night in a row. He had been at Chimayo on Main Street the previous night.
On Saturday, the skiers were back in full force to the slopes of Deer Valley. We headed into Salt Lake City to see the Mormon Temple. How many times have you flown in and out to go to Park City, and wondered what Salt Lake was like? Other than seeing some of the other sites used for screenings, such as the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts, the Temple and its surrounding buildings are it.
Sales were going strong over the weekend. Magnolia was especially busy, picking up the delightful comedy, “Two Days In New York”, ” Nobody Walks” and the controversial thriller “Compliance”. ATO Pictures acquired “Shadow Dancer”, while Participant Media and AFFRM have teamed up to acquire US theatrical rights for “Middle of Nowhere”.
In Salt Lake City on Saturday night, the Sundance Awards ceremony took place. To no one’s surprise, the most talked about film of the festival, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature. The Grand Jury Prize for a documentary went to “The House I Live In”, directed by Eugene Jarecki. Jarecki’s brother Nick directed “Arbitrage”, which also premiered at the festival.
The Dramatic Audience Award went to “The Surrogate”. It was also awarded a Special Jury Prize in Acting for it’s outstanding cast that includes Helen Hunt, John Hawkes & William Macy.
In all, Sundance 2012 was a terrific success. The New York Lounge proved to be busier than ever as a great place to meet new people with whom we hope to be able to collaborate in the future. We had an outstanding celebratory dinner with Pat Kaufman and her team from NYS at Bistro 412.
Other highlights of the week include the fabulous dinner thrown by IFP at the Montage Hotel; the Tisch lunch and the Queer Brunch both held at Grub Steakhouse; the intimate after party for “Two Days in New York”; the raucous dance party hosted by Kodak and the numerous other gatherings held at all hours of the day and night for the last ten days.
Now it is back to New York to recuperate and prepare for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films program, as well as the TriBeCa Film Festival in the Spring.
