Sundance Filmmaker Blog: Alicia Conway, Rite

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Right now, I’m blogging from the New Frontier on Main. I just watched the most amazing piece of video art, by Candice Breitz called Mother+Father (Mother). I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s pretty amazing and involves six screens of video clips that intertwine to create an almost narrative piece of emotional tapestry that paints a picture of motherhood and family relationships and crises. Pretty incredible.

This morning, I attended the Producers’ Brunch event and made some interesting new friends. I didn’t expect to find it as exciting as the Directors’ Brunch, which was yesterday, but I did. I identify as both a producer and director, because my day job is producing, and while I direct and write at work, too, I think I show up with my producer hat on. I found myself a lot more comfortable in the group of producers, who are very get-it-done types, not afraid to approach strangers and scope out possible compatibilities, alliances, and good information exchanges. The directors have a very different vibe, and I discovered that I need to cultivate more of that feeling that I was getting in a group of them – that sense of creativity, of protecting my right to only trouble myself with ideas sometimes (as opposed to always handling logistics and planning myself). It’s interesting that I’m experiencing some self-discovery just because I get to interact with other filmmakers so much here. It’s a real learning opportunity for me, and an added benefit of the festival that I never expected.

Last night was our second screening, and it went very, very well. I couldn’t ask for a better reception. The shorts filmmakers are relegated to the lobby if people want to ask questions — no real Q&A, which is very disappointing — but I’m happy to report that a lot of people stopped me, cast and crew at both of our screenings to ask us questions and make comments. People are really engaging with my film and getting it. I had some other shorts filmmakers tell me that they are hearing people talking positively about my film, which is great. I’m a lot less stressed out now. Now that we have our first two screenings out of the way, it’s all gravy. The luxury at Sundance is that most of the films sell out, so you don’t have the pressure of trying to pack the house yourself. Now I just get to meet as many people as I can, hand out business cards and postcards, encourage people to see my later screenings, and enjoy myself — and watch some movies!!

My husband and I caught the midnight screening of Dead Snow last night preceded by Treevenge. Treevenge was fantastic!!! I highly recommend it. What a great short. I enjoyed Dead Snow, too, but I’m a horror lover, so the fanboy film references and Nazi zombies totally appealed to me.

Oh — and yesterday I had the amazing experience of sitting next to Joe Berlinger on the bus. I’m a huge fan of his documentaries, and we had a great hour-long chat that culminated in him giving me some tickets to his movie, Crude. Super exciting!

I’m having a blast and our trip is not even half done. I can’t wait to find out what the rest of this festival has in store for us.