The Sundance film festival is getting underway and I’m somewhat taken aback to realize it’s been four years since my own Park City odyssey. The actual impetus for my visit was Slamdance 2000, where a movie I co-wrote and co-starred in made its debut. I’d tell you what it was, but truthfully, I don’t know what the current title is and I don’t think it’s available on video in this country or any other. Last I heard there was a lawsuit involved, but I’m not exactly in the loop. In fact, I wasn’t really in the loop even back then. I had been brought into the project by the director, over the objections of the producers, one of whom was the other co-writer. I was never fully able to shake my “interloper” status, and as a matter of fact, had to pay my own way to Park City, even though many other cast and crew members got a free ride on the production’s dime.

Still, they did manage to squeeze me into the condos they had rented for the week, even though I had to shuttle around a few times. The big payoff came on the last couple of days of the fest, when the financers of the picture left town early, thus freeing up their mega-swank condo for myself and a couple others.

Here’s the view from the hot tub of that condo:



Anyway, despite some friction with a couple of the people there, it was an amazing week overall. I’ll never forget tromping up and down Main Street with armloads of posters and flyers, stapling them to the bulletin boards, only to have to repeat the process a few hours later when they’d become completely covered by flyers and posters for other movies.



The highlight was the premiere party for our movie, the budget for which was roughly equivalent to that of the movie itself. The financers hired supermodel Rachel Hunter to host and flew Shawn Colvin in to perform. The place was packed, with many a celeb in attendance (well, Jason Priestly and Ethan Hawke, anyway). We were rock stars that night, but it didn’t exactly translate into buzz for the actual movie. We made the front page of the Arts section back home, with the local critic spending most of the article bemoaning the fact that Sandra Bullock didn’t show up at the party as promised. (But he did quote me a couple times. I can’t seem to find a link to the article online at the moment, unfortunately.)

Anyway, I’m not there this year. But I’ll get back there, maybe next year.