Day 3: My Festival Experience
In today’s episode, our knocked-up reporter faces a high school Prom, a cracker recall, a dusty Fantasy Island reference, a rabid dog, and Anna Wintour.
I wake up at 3 a.m., my nose and mouth an agony of dryness, and drag out the condo’s humidifier. Unfortunately the directions are long gone, so like an alien trying to mate with a new species, I have to irrigate a lot of different holes before I find the right combination. But finally, finally I get the engine to start choo-chooing out little puffs of steam like it’s supposed to, and I collapse back to sleep. And there I remain, unconscious to the world, until the altogether civilized hour of 8 a.m. (a much better hour than yesterday's predawn travesty<), my face openings all dewy and rejuvenated. Go, steam!
Signs of Wintour
I head over to the Temple Theatre with a photographer and the video team with hopes of catching a rare glimpse of power-fashion Vogue editor, Anna Wintour, who’s rumored to be taking questions after a screening of The September Issue. The lobby is a Wintour wonderland of hushed excitement, everyone talking low and casting glances at the theatre doors. And then, all in a rush, the Headsets start to flutter, and we’re sheep-dogged into the theatre. I scamper over to the podium with my digital recorder and sit down on the floor, cross-legged and beaming, a small Romper Room child waiting for a puppet show.
The lights come up, though “lights” might be stretching it – the dimmer seems to be dialed all the way down to “candle glow.” Despite the squint-level lighting, when Lady Wintour swoops in, she’s wearing sunglasses. Also: Boots over dark-wash jeans, a little leather jacket layered over an orzo-colored sweaterlet, paired with a Nalgene.
She’s much smaller than the five feet and eleven inches I imagined. Really tiny. Like keychain-sized. And her hair is a miracle, a fortress of solitude that could almost have been carved out of one solid piece of amber. Remember those wooden dolls of childhood (the ones with the round stump for bodies, which fit perfectly into holes in sold-separately school buses and tractors)? With the hair that snapped off and on? Like that, only very, very stylish.
Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming John Cooper leads the director, R.J. Cutler, and La Wintour through a series of questions, and they both volley with poise and eloquence. And then it’s over, the mood lighting comes up, and she’s off like a three-month carton of milk.
Going to Prom
Next I head over to the Holiday Village Cinemas to see the world premiere of Prom Night in Mississippi, a documentary about a high school in Charleston that is amazingly still holding race-segregated proms: one for the whites, one for the blacks. And not as part of some kind of time-travel sci-fi convention, either. As of 2007, this really, truly was still happening. Morgan Freeman, who’s a Charleston resident and horrified by this throwback setup, offers to foot the bill for their next prom, provided it’s integrated. And a movie is born!
Two of the students from the film are there for the screening, and during the Q&A they reveal that this is the first time they’ve seen the movie. They’re both choked up and excited and insanely cute and well spoken and basically just seconds away from taking over the world, holy wow.
Out in the lobby, I grab a quick dinner snack – one gigantic barrel of buttered popcorn, per fetus’ orders – and overhear the theatre manager trying to give the snack counter employees a pep talk. “Smiles everyone. SMILES!” she yells. The teens stare back at her blankly. “Does anyone know what that reference is from?” More blank stares. I raise my hand, “Um…Fantasy Island.” She cheers, and I shake my head. We truly are ancient.
Good News!
Back at the office, we get an announcement that the peanut butter sandwich crackers, an important staple in of our kitchen larder, have been recalled in the great salmonella scare. Since I’ve been happily munching these for the past two days, this means I may or may not be dying right now. Oh and also there’s an enraged dog on the loose somewhere in, on, or around the office parking lot, and he’s already bitten someone.
At 11 p.m., everyone’s beyond tired but we’re trying to get our dead brains to storm up some new Street Talk questions we ask of random people who are attending the Festival. Suggestions included:
• Did you know there’s a dog biting people in the streets of Park City?
• You didn’t eat any of the peanut butter sandwich crackers, did you?
• If you had just 30 minutes to live, what (short) film would you see, and why?
• Point on the doll where Sundance touched you.
It’s at “point on the doll” that we decide to finally call it a day. There are rumblings of hitting the Filmmakers Lounge, but when I ask what’s happening there tonight, the answer (“drinking”) doesn’t sound all that glorious, what with me in my delicate state. Oh how I miss the salud days of three months ago, when I could drink with impunity! And eat bacon! And take hot tubs! Did I mention our condo has a huge, steaming Athena’s womb of a hot tub? [Sad mime one-arm dangle self-pity emoticon here.]
Instead I decide to tag along with Daily Insider Senior Editor Clay Smith, who’s heading back to the condo. Thinking there’s safety in numbers, we decide to risk the invigorating 5-minute walk home. That way, if the dog attacks the two of us, we both have a 50/50 chance of survival.
Tomorrow’s to-dos: Hit the Cinema Café for an intimate conversation with Nicholas Kristof and Samantha Power (and 50 other Festivalgoers), meet my new favorite girl-crush Mo’Nique (!), and finally get my mouth on a cup of that free ho-cho they’ve been giving away at the got milk? tent on lower Main.
MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10
