The unsung heroes of Sundance

Photo above is of projectionist Katie Trainor unloading a reel of 35mm film after a screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Sunday – It’s been a busy weekend of screenings at Sundance; Eleven films in two days and already two more today. Most of the films I’ve seen so far have been documentaries and while they have been decent, three stand out so far: Marina Zenovich’s “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” an examination of Polanski’s 1977 conviction for illegal sexual activity with a minor; “American Teen,” which follows a small group of Indiana high school seniors through ups and down of their final year in high school; and a fiction film called “Ballast,” which details a family crisis in the rural Mississippi Delta.

I also ran into a dear friend of mine, Katie Trainor, who comes to Sundance ever year to operate the film projectors. It’s not often you get a look behind the scenes at what makes Sundance tick. With all of the focus on the business of the film industry at this festival, the people who actually make things run are often overlooked. Katie is pretty amazing woman in her own right; a film archivist, film programmer, world-class projectionist and the Director of Operations at the IFC Center in Manhattan, she has seen her share of film festivals.

She attends Sundance every year in order to operate the movie projectors here, bringing world-class presentation to the festival’s various venues. Since most of Sundance’s venues are not traditional movie theaters, the festival spends a huge sum of money to convert non-traditional spaces into movie theaters - a high school auditorium, the Park City Public Library, three enormous conference rooms in various hotels around town and, most surprisingly, the interior of a Racquet Club - all become movie theaters during the 10 days of Sundance.

This is a similar situation to what we face during the Sarasota Film Festival.We bring thousands of dollars of film and video equipment and staff to the festival in order to give the films at the festival the best possible projection, sound and presentation quality. Often the unsung heroes of the film festival circuit, I have been fortunate to work with several projectionists and technical professionals during my time, and Sundance is a great opportunity to say hello and get caught up. I’m off to catch another screening, but I thought it would be nice to give you a sneak peek into the projection booth and to sing the praises of the hard-working professionals who make the whole thing possible. – Tom Hall.