By Jen Connors

Park City, Utah. 2,358 miles and two time zones from Rindge, New Hampshire. Forty-five minutes from Salt Lake City. Native population: 7371. Population for the last week of January: questionable, but up by a few thousands at least. This week, seven Franklin Pierce students are part of those thousands of people attending the Sundance Film Festival as part of a class. The seven person class consists of Meghan Graf, Ben Friedman, Kevin Murphy, Liz Squire, Steve Yuen, Aaron West and myself, with Blake Wood as our professor. Over the course of the next several days, we will watch about eighteen films apiece, some with looming release dates (Cedar Rapids) and others gaining notice for the first time (To.get.her).

After picking up our tickets and divvying them out over a late breakfast/early lunch, we decided to go explore the area. The area around Main Street, where two Sundance theaters and the Slamdance Film Festival are located, houses most of the restaurants, bars and stores in Park City. Main Street also doubles as a showcase for numerous musicians trying to get their name out by playing on the street. The musicians have all been incredibly talented so far, with acts ranging from a pianist to guitarists to full bands. We have taken to referring to various statues as our landmarks, from a cow in front of an ice cream store to a bear near the box office and a moose down the street from our condo. Situated in a valley surrounded by ski mountains, the area itself is absolutely gorgeous.

For our first night here, we had dinner at Zoom, a restaurant owned by Sundance founder Robert Redford. While Redford is often known to make an appearance the first night of the festival, he wasn’t there during our meal. The director of Howl, Rob Epstein, was leaving as we were sitting down. The food was excellent and very filling. After dinner, we went to the opening night party at the Legacy Lodge. Sadly no celebrity sightings but we got a decent amount of swag and had a lot of fun.

Celebrities seem to be flying under the radar, yesterday at least. Steve and Kevin saw Anton Yelchin and are about 70% sure they spotted Kim Kardashian when they went to Main Street for lunch today. Meg, Ben and I saw Liv Tyler as we waited in line for The Ledge,  and Ben and Aaron saw Michael Moore speak at a panel about culture and social change with Bobby Kennedy Jr, as well as Harry Belafonte. According to Steve, Anton was with his mom and was, “freaking out about steak,” and that Kim was “with a bunch of rich-looking, attractive women.” Aaron and Ben saw Ryan Seacrest after a panel that Michael Moore was heading. Zoom, which is usually full of movie stars on the first night of the festival, was missing its celeb clientele and its owner, Robert Redford. We’re currently all hoping that the stars come out of hiding for at least one day before we leave.


So far we have seen four movies. We all saw a shorts program as a group to start off the day, which included the star-studded Fight For Your Right Revisited, a parody of what happened to the Beastie Boys following the 1987 video shoot for “Fight For Your Right.” Fight starred Seth Rogan, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride as the band in 1987 and Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly as an older version. I personally thought that the short was funny, but maybe a little over the top: the credits listed forty film and television stars in cameos. Next, I saw The Ledge with Ben and Meg (the rest of the group caught a showing this morning) while Kevin, Liz and Steve saw Bellflower. Steve and Kevin could not stop singing the film’s praises, with Kevin stating, “it took a love story and turned it on its head. It was one of the most original movies I’ve seen in a while.” Steve goes on with, “the acting is some of the most sincere I’ve seen. The characters were basically playing themselves.” The Ledge, a thriller starring Liv Tyler, Charlie Hunnam, Patrick Wilson and Terrance Howard, was powerfully written and acted, with twists that could have changed the outcome of the story several times before the film’s harrowing climax. We have three movies scheduled for tonight and eight for tomorrow. Between now and Wednesday morning, we each have about eighteen films to see. Updates will follow as we get out of films.