Hi everyone!
Got up this morning to see the World Cinema Jury Award winner, "King of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen)", a Swedish film about an overweight teen who is the best ping pong player at a community youth center. Other than that claim to fame, there's not much going right in his life – he's picked on by bullies, his younger brother is making the moves on a girl that he likes, and there are questions about the father figures in his life. Most of the film is plodding and tedious, but then it seems to take a tragic turn, but even that turns out to be tedious and not as tragic as it first seemed. I really don't know what the jury was thinking. 2 ½ stars (out of five).
I then went to see the film that won both the Alfred P. Sloan Prize (for a film's use of science) and the Screenwriting Award. It is a Mexican film called "Sleep Dealer" which deals with people being connected through implanted nodes to machines which allow them to work at jobs around the world from central factories. The implanted nodes can also be used to download memories to sell to other people. People can also connect to each other via the nodes to increase sensations during intimate encounters. It was a pretty good story of a young man dealing with newly implanted nodes and the people that he comes into contact after that. 3 ½ stars (out of five).
It was then time to work my final volunteer shift. Unfortunately, it wasn't with my usual midnight crew, so it wasn't nearly as fun. But everything went smoothly because the screenings were sparsely attended. There's a snowstorm coming tonight, so it seems that many people checked out early. I'm keeping my fingers crossed to make it home on my afternoon flight tomorrow.
I'll write more when I get back home…
Your Sundance correspondent,
Ted
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