Park City not the only place for the glitz and glamour of Sundance’s premiering movies
What’s your excuse?
Eddie Murphy was there. P. Diddy showed up. Even little Dakota Fanning stayed out past her bedtime. So why haven’t you been to Sundance?
Like any other great world attraction, the Sundance Film Festival often gets the least respect from those nearest to it. But if you have $10 and some spare time, it’s not too late to catch some amazing films before the rest of the planet does and participate in one of the premiere events in the entire film industry. You don’t even have to bundle up and drive to Park City to do it.
Three Sundance films will be screening just forty minutes away in Ogden this weekend at Peery’s Egyptian Theatre at 2415 Washington Blvd. Carla Woodmansee, the Ogden Box Office manager for the festival, said people shouldn’t think coming to Ogden instead of Park City is less of an experience.
“We don’t get the stars as much, but we get a lot of directors and producers,” Woodmansee said. She said it’s not uncommon for a director to come and have question-and-answer sessions with the audiences in Ogden after the screenings, like British short film director Jonathan Hopkins did last Friday.
Mary Hargis of Roy has been attending Sundance in Ogden for the past eight years and recommends it.
“I feel like the past two or three years, especially, Ogden’s film selection has been good,” Hargis said. She said in the past she has attended films that went on to achieve widespread success such as “Matador” and “Friends With Money.” Last year she also saw “Little Miss Sunshine,” which is now nominated for four Academy Awards.
Holli Barneck, 20, of Ogden, said she got a taste for the Ogden screenings during high school, when her high school classes were allowed to come to free Sundance matinees as part of the curriculum and were some of the first to see
movies such as “Napoleon Dynamite.”
“I really enjoyed it when we came to the high school showings,” Barneck said.
She said this year, though it wasn’t free, she was willing to pay the $10 to see “Ghosts,” a British film in the World Dramatic competition. She said the wait-list ticketing process went smoothly.
“It was really easy here,” Barneck said. “There were no long lines or anything.”
Ticketing at Sundance works two ways, Woodmansee said. If there are tickets available for a showing, people can buy them in advance for $15.
If a showing is sold out or people do not want to pay full price, they should arrive at the box office two hours in advance. They will be given a number and then are free to leave until 30 minutes prior to the showing, when wait-list tickets are distributed according to the priority numbers.
Woodmansee said the Ogden location has the advantage over Park City in this respect, and tickets are still available for this weekend’s screenings in Ogden.
She said, “This is the easiest place to get into because we’re sort of out of the way, and we have a lot of seats,” 830 in all.
“People should come to Ogden because we have the most beautiful theater of all of the theaters,” Woodmansee said. “It blows Park City’s Egyptian out of the water.”
Peery’s Egyptian Theatre has been on the National Registry of Historic Sites since 1978 and boasts elaborate Egyptian hieroglyphics, art deco architecture, a striking mural of Abu Simbel, one of the temples built by Ramsses II, and a distinctive ceiling that twinkles with stars.
If people hope to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood stars, however, they’re better off in Park City. The wait-list process is the same there, although more competitive, and research should be done about the shuttle system, as parking can be elusive. Information on movies screening in Ogden, Salt Lake City and Park City, and other helpful tips, can be found at http://sundance.festival.org/2007.
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu