Sundance 2005 - Diary of a Director

21 Jan
Flew to the U.S. via Atlanta. Darned long flight but I'm beaming. I'm on my way to Sundaaaaaaance film festival! Yeehi!

US immigration: I'm a Jamaican who now has a UK passport too. Once they scan it and see that I'm Jamaican usually I have a hard time entering the U.S. NOT THIS TIME... When I told the immigration officer that I was here with a film... It was like it was, just for a moment, party time! It might sound small but to me it was 'woah'! The immigration officer welcomed me into the States with a smile.

I arrive at my lodging before midnight. It's effectively an army barracks. There's a girls' dorm and a boys' dorm (bunkbeds!), and I'm happy to be here.

22 Jan
The Director's brunch at Sundance Village
Food galore. Everything you can think of or dream about: acres of tables with the most exquisite platters. Lawd. On my filmmaker's budget this is much appreciated. Then, flipping heck, there he was... Robert Redford. So close I could touch him. He began to tell a story to us about how he tried to get an indie film off the ground after Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and back then, even though a studio was helping him, nothing happened with the movie because there was no market for indies and so they dumped it. And that was when he thought - 'You know what? I'm going to create a market for it. I'm going to create a forum for indies to thrive'. And here it was. I was pretty inspired because what I saw up there was a man who'd dug deep into his own pocket and heart to help others.

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