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Show A popcorn eater's guide to film festival consumption by Nan Chalat Aside from offering film professionals profes-sionals a chance to share their craft, the United States Film Festival, to be held in Park City Jan. 19-27, will give movie-goers a chance to taste more esoteric fare, to preview upcoming box-office hits and to discover a few sleepers that may never reach national distribution. This year the festival will offer more screenings than ever before, so the amateur movie buff will have to plan his (or her) time carefully. It is hard to say whether not seeing enough or trying to see too much is worse, but by reviewing the schedule ahead of time both extremes can be avoided. This year a free film guide, including capsule reviews and a complete schedule, is available. Take an hour or so before the festival , begins on Friday to read through the reviews and to highlight the films you might like to see. The guides are available at the Park City library, the Memorial Building, the Egyptian Theater and Holiday Village Cinemas. Cine-mas. It is likely you will mark more movies than a normal person could ever absorb in nine days, so some judicial cutting will be necessary. Then consult the screening schedule which is listed both by film and by day in the film guide. The only way to avoid missing a particular film is to plan ahead. Most of the competition films will be shown twice, but the premieres and the retrospective films will only be offered once during the festival. The next step is to purchase a screen voucher. With the exception of the major premieres all screenings will be $4. A book of ten vouchers is available at a discount rate of $30. In Park City the vouchers are available at the film festival offices in the Memorial Building at 427 Main St. ; But you are not home free yet. The voucher must be exchanged for a ticket to the screening of your choice. Screening times for some of the more popular films will probably be sold out by the end of the week, so try to make your choices early. Among the dramatic and documentary docu-mentary films in competition there is always speculation about which ones will be judged as the best in their categories. If you enjoy wild cards and want to be sure of seeing the winners you can exchange a voucher for Sunday's 2 p.m. screening of the documentary-winning film or the 4 p.m. showing of the winner in the dramatic competition. Tickets for individual screenings will also be 6old, depending on availability, one hour before they are to be shown at the Holiday Village Cinemas or the Egyptian Theatre. If tickets are still available those box offices will also accept screening vouchers. For more information about ticket availability call 1-800-874-4188 or (80D 328-FILM. |