OCR Text |
Show C-2 The Park Record Wed/Thurs/Fri, January 22-24, 2020 Slamdance continues to be a venue for discovery Locals Discount! 10% Off Double Your Discount from 2-5pm! 20% Off *Valid from 01/21/20-02/03/20, No split checks, does not discount alcohol. Baja Cantina ~On the bus line~ Base of Park City Resort (435) 649-2252 182 100 JODI, heart attack and stroke survivor. YOUR NUMBERS COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Lowering your high blood pressure could save you from a heart attack or stroke. If you’ve stopped your treatment plan, restart it or talk to your doctor about creating one that works better for you. Start taking the right steps at ManageYourBP.org Partnerships vital to the festival’s ongoing mission SCOTT IWASAKI The Park Record After a year of reflection for Slamdance’s 25th anniversary last year, president and co-founder Peter Baxter wanted to set his sights again to looking toward the future this year. “I’ve been looking at the next 25 years, if you like, and Slamdance has always been a place of discovery,” he said. “Whether it is year 25, year 15 or, now, year 26, I think filmmakers break out of the film festival because the industry at large recognizes the need for new voices. Slamdance has become a place to find those new voices.” This year’s festival will run from Jan. 24-30 at Treasure Mountain Inn, and Baxter said a group of new voices emerged from a record-breaking 8,230 film submissions this year. “We try to create a level playing field for all of these filmmakers, and you can see with the number of submissions, it’s an incredibly competitive,” Baxter said. This year’s slate features 16 premieres, 10 world premieres, 5 North American premiers and one U.S. debut from Belarus, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia and South Africa, Baxter said. “We are particularly looking at those from marginalized and underrepresented groups whose stories have often been missed, largely because of a historically Western-dominated medium,” he said. “The exciting thing about Slamdance is that it is a place of discovery, but it also reminds us, when we are looking at these particular types of artists, of the great power of visual storytelling. And this type of storytelling enables audiences to see life through the eyes of others. Since we’re our own community, there is no outside influence that will impact our programming.” Baxter credited festival manager Alina Solodnikova for overseeing the teams of programmers, all of whom are filmmakers themselves, to create a cohesive and organized program. “The way Slamdance is programmed and run by filmmakers and alumni makes it so every year we have new energy and new young filmmakers coming to the festival,” Solodnikova said. “With the young filmmakers comes new blood and a new understanding of modern independent film. We are always open to experimentation.” The festival manager agreed with Baxter and said it is important to look at films from underrepresented countries and cultures, which, she said, is more powerful because one of Slamdance’s alums, Bong Joon-ho, won the Foreign Fea- Continued from C-1 Sachs’ film will open Slamdance funky, radical things,” she said. “So he let us in and out of those communities.” Lynne said Ira had an “open door policy in his life.” “You just never know who would walk in,” she said. “I didn’t know if these people would be staying with us for a long time or just coming over for dinner. That kind of unpredictableness was something I had to get used to.” Although Lynne had been working on the film for the past three decades, she knew that audiences would eventually see it and learn about some of her family’s dynamics and secrets. “I didn’t necessarily think that other people would be interested, but I also hoped it wasn’t going to be a film that PARK RECORD FILE PHOTO Slamdance president and co-founder Peter Baxter says the film industry recognizes the need for new voices, and Slamdance has become a place to find those voices. E t COURTESY OF SLAMDANCE Alina Solodnikova, Slamdance Film Festival manager oversees the committees that select and program the films. Slamdance received a record-breaking 8,230 film submissions this year. ture Film Golden Globe for his dramedy thriller “Parasite,” which is about an impoverished South Korean family who cons a wealthy family. “It’s amazing and encouraging to see how the film is being accepted by the American public,” Solodnikova said. “We totally support and agree with what he said in his acceptance speech, that you have to pass the one-inch barrer of subtitles to discover a whole new world of film.” With the young filmmakers comes new blood and a new understanding of modern independent film...” Alina Solodnikova, Slamdance Film Festival manager In addition to examining the international world, Slamdance is also focusing on the local Utah film community by continuing its partnership with the University of Utah’s department of film and media arts, which gives students a chance to work and train at the festival. “If we are supporting emerging artists who have made films, why can’t we support filmmakers who will be going to submit films one day to Slamdance?” Baxter said about the partnership. “We bring these students in and pay them because they have a job to do, which is to make Slamdance happen.” As a result of the partnership, film students benefit by not only was just about my relationship with my father,” she said. “I hoped it would be a film about how a child connects with a parent, and the imprint that parent leaves on the child, even though they are very different.” Making the film also helped Lynne start thinking about herself differently. “I was no longer just his daughter, but an adult who was trying to figure this man out,” she said. The decision to submit it to Slamdance was another thing she felt she had to do. “I’ve been making experimental documentaries for decades now, and I’ve opened other people’s doors by asking them to tell us about their lives,” she said. “So, I felt it was time for me to open my own door and look inside.” That idea also tried to keep her from finishing the film. “I felt vulnerable for myself, for my family and for him,” Lynne said. “But he’d opened up to me, and I saw that he made choices that were layered in a search for happiness. Throughout the film you will see my father never said good- Slamdance When: Jan. 24-30 Where: Treasure Mountain Inn, 255 Main St. Web: slamdance.com seeing how a film festival is run, but by also meeting and networking with other filmmakers who attend, according to Baxter. “That, in itself, helps these students from a practical point of view of solving production challenges by giving them hands-on experiences with a filmmaker or group of filmmakers who are presenting their work at the festival,” he said. Slamdance attendees and filmmakers can also learn more about the industry through daily workshop programming, Solodnikova said. Pierce Law Group will offer legal tips regarding funding, producing and distribution, and the Polytechnic workshops will give filmmakers a chance to hear from industry insiders about various topics related to filmmaking, she said. Slamdance will also continue its Breakouts Program, which debuted last year, Baxter said. “This is a program for directors who are beyond their first film who have a healthy disrespect for narrative and documentary convention,” he said. “They are in the middle of establishing themselves as a unique artist with a unique vision.” Baxter feels it is important for Slamdance to continue its support of these filmmakers for the sake of the future of independent film. “Very often we have seen over the years, a Slamdance alumni struggling to get that second Please see Slamdance, C-4 bye. He kept saying hello.” The filmmaker knows that her father’s lifestyle made a challenging film in the #MeToo era. “But I think it shows the older men in our lives come with pockets of compassion and problems that need to be reckoned with, rather than simplifying them and putting them on a shelf,” she said. Alina Solodnikova, Slamdance Festival manager, said “A Film About a Father Who,” which was submitted to the Breakout category, is a “brave statement” and needed to be the opening film. “Lynne has established herself as an experimental filmmaker, and she patiently and delicately has been exploring her family history for 30 years,” Solodnikova said. “She discovered many new facts about a person who is fairly well known in Park City, and who happens to be her own father. The storytelling we thought was incredible, and it was a local story. So there wasn’t a question of whether or not it was going to be our opening-night film.” |