The last couple days have been such a whirlwind! There’s been no time at all to blog: there’s no internet reception in the room so hauling the laptop to wireless access has been a challenge with our schedule. One thing about travelling with the entire crew of your film—counting everyone (including Irena’s mom!) we’re about 18 people—is getting anyone to get to one place at a time is like trying to get a ship out of dock. And we had to be in a lot of places, especially Sunday, the day of our premiere: a late breakfast, then a quick lunch with my friend Ed (whose boyfriend Mark Jude Poirier wrote Smart People, starring Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker—I can’t wait to see it tomorrow night and then we went to the filmmaker/press reception. It was great to meet some of the other filmmakers and chat with them about their work. I seemed to be in a pocket of shorts directors: Daniel Robin directed My Olympic Summer, Signe Bauman gave me the postcard of her film the “Teat Beat of Sex”; and Nao Bustamente, showed up wearing a mustache and porting a small dog, was promoting her film “Untitled #1.”–which I’m very excited to get to see because I have tickets for the feature it’s showing before, I absolutely love the Shorts Programs at Sundance. I feel like since the shorts are already out of the running for major cinematic release, the filmmakers don’t concern themselves as much with commercial constraints, and the films can be breathtaking and surprising. Last time I was here, in 2005, my absolute favorite film was a short: Tama Tu, by Taika Waititi, a Maori filmmaker. So I hope to catch a few more shorts programs while I’m here.

After Irena did an internet interview at the reception, we ran back to the room to change to go to the pre-film gathering our producer Gill Holland arranged for us; neither Irena and I could really eat much. There’s so much excitement and nervousness when a film is premiering—even though we are proud of it and know that every time we screen we get an a amazing response, this is the first time it has been for a paying, non-invited audience, on the big screen, at the Sundance film festival! So we were pretty wound up as we approached the Holiday Village Cinema.

After a few photos in the filmmaker’s tent, in we went. It was pretty amazing to watch the room fill up. We watched the delightful short that was programmed with our film, “My Biodegradable Heart”, and then it was black. And the first sounds of lapping waves filled the darkened room.

It was amazing. I’d always wanted a texture of waters at the start, and I had never been able to achieve the perfect effect in the Avid as I was cutting (I’m not a mixer), but our mixer at Sound One had done an incredible job. The sound was intimate, and sensual, and exactly what was needed. My heart began pounding like crazy, and did so for the next 93 minutes—but it flew by. We needn’t have worried. The audience was with the film all the way, dead silent, or laughing at our few funny moments, or gasping.

We had a great Q&A that night, and went off to the lovely dinner thrown for us by one of our producers, Steven Nemeth, but yesterday’s Q&A, for the second screening, was the one to remember. It was an afternoon screening; Irena and I didn’t go but we showed up at the end, to the sound of prolonged clapping. The first guy to stand up nearly gave us a heart attack: He announced that he had been a longtime employee of Suez, one of the water companies we deeply criticize in the film for their work in privatizing water—and that he had spent many hours in the company of Gerard Mestrallet, the president of Suez, who is interviewed in our film. We were bracing ourselves for the attack when he suddenly said “Thank you. These people don’t care about people, they don’t care about water, they only care about money. I left Suez 18 months ago because I was disgusted with them. They need to be exposed.” It was the most amazing thing. And everyone was getting up and asking how they could get involved, what they could do. One woman stood up and said she worked for the Scottish Water Company, doing PR work promoting the privatization of water in Scotland: she said our movie changed her mind and heart, and from now on she’d be working for the other side. It was an amazing feeling.

We left that movie absolutely thrilled. Afterwards I got to talk to Doug Blush, the editor of IOUSA who was very kind in his praise of the film and of my editing. I always love meeting other editors and talking process and sharing notes. I actually was dying to see his film, and wasn’t able to get tickets: both our films deal in part with the way banks and debt are crushing the democratic process. I’m going to stop by their screening today and see if I can score a ticket; if not, I’m going to Goliath, a deadpan comedy that’s gotten good buzz.

And last night I saw my very first movie as an audience member! It was the documentary shorts program and I loved almost all of them. The one I keep talking about is “Kids and Money,” by Lauren Greenfield, interviews with children in Los Angeles about their purchasing habits. It was absolutely terrifying. These kids—sometimes as young as 11—were obsessed with clothes and purses and makeup and status with a level of terrible sophistication I don’t even see among my adult friends. Evidently it was picked up by Sheila Nevins at HBO so you must watch for it: it’s really a must-see and should make us all take a hard look at the values we are teaching our children. Other films were two absolutely lovely films by Irish director Ken Wardrop—a film with two old women talking about smoking made me laugh until tears came to my eyes—and a really breathtaking, unusual animated documentary by Brent Green.

We had a great party last night, totally low-key and friendly, co-hosted by the great people at IndieGoGo. There was pizza and beer and no pretensions whatsoever. We were all high from our Q&A and can’t wait for our screening in Salt Lake tonight, where we’ll get more non-industry people and a different perspective on what we’re doing.

Off to IOUSA or Goliath—wish me luck!

Ps remember to check out our own website: FLOW!