Sundance Dispatch #4

At the "Finding Your Audience" panel, I was most inspired by someone from the audience, the very mustached maker of "Genghis Blues," the documentary from a couple years ago about throat singers, the guys (are there women throat singers?) who can make more than one sound at once. He encouraged me to just keep finding ways to get my movies seen, allowing connections to have a cumulative affect.

John Paul was a good sport and accompanied me to another panel as well, "Creative Independence." But these were high-powered independent filmmakers like Alexander Payne ("Sideways"). Until someone gives me a lot of money to make a movie, I guess I don't have to worry about losing creative control. Then again, there's always the important question of my responsibility to my Dominican province and to my vocation as a Dominican priest filmmaker.

I connected with Scott Hellon. I met him at Sundance last year and finally got around just before this year's festival to watching his feature, shot at the University of Arizona with non-actors. A moving and impressive film with 60 speaking roles. He's finding funding in Tucson to support his full-time filmmaking, equipment purchase, and his new feature (Point of View Pictures).

John Paul left and Daniel arrived yesterday. We discovered a free panel at Starbucks, yet another unofficial part of Sundance. The panel asked about the power of film to change the world. Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for the Dude in "The Big Lebowski," surprisingly challenged us to create spiritual movies that show an authentic experience of religion. He thinks the right movie could start a new religion. Actually, I wouldn't mind shedding light on an old one.

"Princesas" ranks up there with "Forgiven" now as my favorite Sundance films so far this year. It was a beautiful, simple neo-realist story about the friendship that develops between a middle class prostitute in Spain and a Dominican (the country, not my religious community) prostitute, one of the unwelcome immigrants undercutting the business of the local prostitutes.

I continue to run into people from Chapman film school: three separate pairs of filmmakers. It's great to connect with them again and encourage each other.

I fell into bed exhausted last night and am still pretty darn tired this morning. But then I didn’t come here to sleep. Still, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's screening of "Wide Awake," a filmmaker's depiction of his life with insomnia.

-dominic
1/26/06, 9:28 am