A colleague very unexpectedly died on Monday. Not someone I knew well, but someone who touched the lives of many people I know. He was the boss of my close friends at the San Francisco Film Society with whom I'm staying in Park City. Bingham Ray.
Navigating Sundance after a tragedy such as this has been tough. You have to be on your game to get to the right places at the right times, and to make all the decisions that result in a full day of the best films - or even just films.
Yesterday I did not feel on my game. I saw a shorts program that was disturbing and mostly bad, did a bunch of remote work that had accumulated, and then went to a panel that wasn't a panel - just people congratulating themselves one at a time. More work, which must be done wherever you happen to be, then had dinner with a group of bright-eyed St. Mary's College students: probably the best part of the day.
I took a break this morning to ski with my friend Joanne. It's what I wanted to do. It was a day of self-care, which would make my therapist proud.
My son Joseph's friends hooked us up with free equipment and lift tickets, which was awesome. Made me feel good about my son, and even better about skiing.
Skiing...The quiet. The challenge of getting down the mountain as fast as you can without eating shit (a face full of snow and/or breaking something). Sitting at the top of a beautiful Wasatch mountain under a blue sky with big puffy clouds and seeing for hundreds of miles in all directions. Then finding ancient muscle memory, from when you were much stronger and bolder, and allowing yourself to give over to it, to trust those muscles even when they burn, and you are saying out loud in your mind, "turn! turn! turn!" and sometimes can't really see because everything in front of you is white.
There were hardly any people.
We skiied so hard my legs were shaking like jello afterwards.
I just escaped to Kashmir with Valley of the Saints, a small, beautiful film. The rest of the week, starting right now, I will focus on seeing as many films as I can pack in. The crowds are diminishing, which is nice.
This Sundance isn't about parties for me. It's been more serious. Today was somewhat frivolous and such a wonderful break from the gloom brought on by Bingham's untimely death.
Navigating Sundance after a tragedy such as this has been tough. You have to be on your game to get to the right places at the right times, and to make all the decisions that result in a full day of the best films - or even just films.
Yesterday I did not feel on my game. I saw a shorts program that was disturbing and mostly bad, did a bunch of remote work that had accumulated, and then went to a panel that wasn't a panel - just people congratulating themselves one at a time. More work, which must be done wherever you happen to be, then had dinner with a group of bright-eyed St. Mary's College students: probably the best part of the day.
I took a break this morning to ski with my friend Joanne. It's what I wanted to do. It was a day of self-care, which would make my therapist proud.
My son Joseph's friends hooked us up with free equipment and lift tickets, which was awesome. Made me feel good about my son, and even better about skiing.
Skiing...The quiet. The challenge of getting down the mountain as fast as you can without eating shit (a face full of snow and/or breaking something). Sitting at the top of a beautiful Wasatch mountain under a blue sky with big puffy clouds and seeing for hundreds of miles in all directions. Then finding ancient muscle memory, from when you were much stronger and bolder, and allowing yourself to give over to it, to trust those muscles even when they burn, and you are saying out loud in your mind, "turn! turn! turn!" and sometimes can't really see because everything in front of you is white.
There were hardly any people.
We skiied so hard my legs were shaking like jello afterwards.
I just escaped to Kashmir with Valley of the Saints, a small, beautiful film. The rest of the week, starting right now, I will focus on seeing as many films as I can pack in. The crowds are diminishing, which is nice.
This Sundance isn't about parties for me. It's been more serious. Today was somewhat frivolous and such a wonderful break from the gloom brought on by Bingham's untimely death.
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