Brent Hoff, editor and co-founder of Wholphin, is our official Rumpus correspondent at The Sundance Film Festival.
OK, first off, I’m no scuttlebutt. If you want the super chill on Spike’s Absolut / CAA party last night, talk to Bill Murray. Suffice it to say I wasn’t the guy passed out and drooling on himself in the corner. But before I get too sleep deprived and incoherent, I just want to say I feel really good about my romantic prospects here this year. I think this is the year I find true love.
You might think, from the past 10 issues of Wholphin, that I am only capable of loving squid and other sea creatures, but that’s not true. I am capable of falling in love with humans and this year I am falling in love with six of them, namely the Sundance Shorts Programmers.
I’m on the jury so I can’t talk specifics, but 2010 is shaping up to be one of the better curated festivals I’ve been to. Perhaps some film school zombies out there still see shorts as a temporary way station on the glorious road to being offered Alvin and The Chipmunk’s Bavarian Vacation, “Wir Suchen Eine Nutcrackers!” … But if you view short film as a calling card, you’d better understand that the criteria for what that means has changed drastically in the last few years. The emphasis has shifted from “short” to “film.” And we’re seeing films here. Serious and amazing and hilarious and freaking heartbreaking films directed by serious and amazing directors. Many of them aren’t cheap, and many of them aren’t even short, they’re just “differently lengthed.”
Shorts are being screened in larger theaters this year and the screenings have been justifiably packed. At the opening night premier of Shorts Program One, Bob himself introduced the program and made it clear this was truly an “opening night premier” in the festival sense, a sign that differently-lengthed films are on increasingly equal footing with their extended counterparts. Bob attributed the new heightened profile and interest to the advent of mobile technology and reduced attention spans, but the fact is people are just making better movies.
And the fact that people are obviously interested in watching great motion pictures at whatever length is proof that in this business, length, the right length, is everything.
And my god. The mango gazpacho hors d’oeuvres were slurpier than the girl (redacted by the Wholphin legal staff) was drunkenly making out with last night! Play on players!
***
