markmarchesi.com

Frenzied reporters getting the scoop at Sundance 2010.  Gives a good impression of the festival atmosphere.

The Sundance Film Festival 2010 began yesterday.  That means it has been ten long years since I wandered the streets of Park City during that famed week where independent filmmakers from around the globe vie for their shot at super stardom.

Sundance is arguably the largest and most influential showcase in the world for independent film.  Low budget films that are well received by audiences at Sundance regularly get bought by the large movie houses and released later in the year to become smash hits.  It attracts a hugely diverse crowd made up of everyone from A-list celebrities and top Hollywood film executives, to starving writers, actors, and filmmakers, to innocent film buffs like myself.

My Sundance experience began in Eloy, Arizona.  I was staying with my friend Jeff Provenzano in his trailer at Skydive Arizona.  Winter had set in and I was growing tired of blue skies and dry heat.  I wanted to get into the mountains and do some snowboarding.  I became aware that my desire to leave the desert and the start of Sundance were coinciding, and when the idea of attending the festival set in there was no other destination worth considering.

My only problem was lack of funds.  I had been working at a golf course near Eloy but quit when I decided to head north, and my final paycheck had all gone to a mechanic for necessary repairs on my Blazer.  So I borrowed fifty dollars from Jeff’s girlfriend Amy and hit the road.  The plan was to arrive in Park City a week before the festival and find a job making enough money to eat, see some films, buy a couple lift tickets, and pay Amy back.  And it worked

I had an awe inspiring journey through Northern AZ and Southern UT, camping and hiking in a couple spots along the way, then got onto the interstate and rolled into Park City on a cold afternoon without a dime.  I parked my car and started exploring the sleepy streets of historic downtown.  Because except for the week that the festival is in town, Park City is a pretty quiet place.  Before long I came across the foggy windows of the Main Street Deli and went inside to warm up.  As luck would have it, I walked in a transient and walked out an employee.

My timing was perfect.  The owners of the deli were gearing up for the busy week ahead and their counter person had just given them notice that he was leaving.  And after hearing about my prior deli experience in NY and Portland filling out the application was just a formality.  I started at 8 am the next day, but payday was a week away and I had no place to stay.

Thankfully I was given one full meal per shift at the deli, the tip jar filled up nicely every day, and I had a good zero degree sleeping bag layed out in the back of the Blazer.  Although, Park City is at about seven thousand feet and overnight temps in January drop well below zero.  I would go to sleep wearing thermal underwear, hat, and wool socks with a heavy fleece blanket over the sleeping bag and wake up with the nylon bag and the inside of my car windows coated with frost.

I found a back door to the ski lodge which stayed unlocked all night and I used the bathroom inside there to wash, shave, brush my teeth, and relieve myself.  It was a very nice restroom and luckily I never had anyone walk in on me while all but bathing in the sink.  My employers knew I was homeless but didn’t care as long as I showed up everyday looking presentable and worked hard, which I did.

Night Skiing at Park City, Utah

During the week of Sundance the Main Street Deli was a madhouse .  There was a line out the door all day every day.  I had to be on - I was the face of that deli from morning until evening.  It was exhausting but fun because the atmosphere was festive.  That’s why they call it a festival.  I could tell the New Yorkers from the LA crowd because the New Yorkers would order bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches for breakfast and people from LA would buy a yogurt.  I got to know a bunch of repeat customers who would come in three or four times a day and update me on what they had seen and what they planned to see next.

At quitting time I’d take my share of the tips and go wait in line to buy movie a movie ticket then go night skiiing for a couple hours before the show.  I met a young married couple from New York who by chance were going to see almost all the same movies as me.  We went to CVS and bought a deck of Uno cards and the three of us played Uno while waiting in line for a few different shows.

The way they did it was to have everyone line up starting at a certain time.  Then eventually a Sundance volunteer would come by and give everyone numbers starting with the first person in line.  How many numbers was dependant on how many seats were available for that particular show after advanced sales were tallied and comp tickets given out.  Most of the tickets I scored were procured in this manner, and a couple were given to me by deli patrons.

When it was all said and done I had seen a total of about a dozen films, most of which were documentaries.  The most memorable being The Eyes of Tammy Fay, after which there was a Q&A with the directors, RuPaul who narrated, and Tammy Faye herself.  And the premiere screening of Dark Days, an intimate portrait of a group of “mole people” living in an abandoned train tunnel in NYC, after which the director Marc Singer who had lived with the group for months and learned to operate a film camera in order to document them, got a huge standing ovation.

I met Marc Singer at the deli one of my first days on the job.  He came in to hang a poster for his film in the window. I asked him what it was about and he was surprised to hear that I was aware of such underground homless communities.  I somehow got an aisle seat for the show and after the standing ovation when everyone was getting up to leave he came over to shake my hand and say thanks for coming.

Later that week he came into the deli for a sandwich and thanked me again.  By that time he was a full fledged Sundance celebrity, but just as gracious and humble as the day he ventured into that train tunnel to set up camp with the mole people.  It is that is the kind of spirit that makes the festival such a great time.  Of course there is an abundance of annoying scenesters with fake personalites taking up space, but it is the really talented, down to earth artists like Marc Singer and my Uno playing partners who make Sundance the premiere independent fimmaking event of the year.