Photo Credit Berkeley Lukas

As with summer camps attended in childhood, the film festival environment is a fantasy of sorts. There's an immediate connection you feel with others based on mutual interests. There's the excitement of seeing new films. There's the vibe in the air of energy and passion. Yet, especially with long festivals, there's a fatigue, loneliness and outsiderness that can set in, because, after all, these moments are ephemeral.

Berkeley took this picture in the early afternoon, as we drove into town.

"Why won't you sit in the middle to be near both of us?" Brian asks.

"I have to get out first, buddy, and besides, I can reach you from here," I answer, stretching my arm out to grab his tiny hand.

I'd helped the boys get dressed this morning in an exchange that went like this:

"You've got to launch your foot into the sock," I tell Brian. "Ready?"

"POW!" And, he misses.

"HAH!" And, he misses.

"You're not supposed to kick me, silly. You've got to get your foot in the sock."

"PAH!" And, the foot's in the sock. This process continued with every piece of clothing.

"Are you in childcare, or do you just throw yourself into whatever situation is happening?" Herb asks.

"Oh, I just throw myself in," I say. "Plus I love kids. They're fascinating."

On Main Street, I part from the Lukas' and head into the New Frontier art installations. The basement room, abuzz with chatter, houses an eclectic mix of conceptual and structural pieces. I'm particularly taken with Daniel Rozin's Peg Mirror and Snow Mirror. Instantly striking, the circle of moving wooden panels uses mirrors and computer software to create shadows that mimic the movement of objects placed directly in front of the circle's center sensor. As I stood in front of the piece, waving my right hand slowly back and forth, the wooden panels moved likewise. Also standout for me were Marina Zurkow's Poster Children and Heroes of the Revolution, morbid but captivating animations that comment on child warfare; Hasan Elahi's Tracking Transcience: The Orwell Project, a multi-running video project that takes influence from video surveillance; and, Jennifer Steinkamp's Mike Kelley, a high-definition video projection of fluidly moving leaves on a tree.

Before heading out to the premiere of Jonathan Levine's sophomore feature The Wackness, I stopped into the press office to check out Jan Schütte's Love Comes Lately. Bridging fantasy and reality, the film follows writer Max Kohn (Otto Tausig) as he contends with his ever-fluctuating sexual desires. While pleasant and innocuous in its rhythms, Love Comes Lately is astoundingly mediocre and soporific, straying too long in territories that carry no weight.

As if to redeem that screening, The Wackness boasts a phenomenal soundtrack, stunning cinematography in a traditional story that works without flaw. It's a great showing by Levine, whose good humor spills out over the audience, his cast and crew in the lame Q&A that follows the premiere. Lame, I say, not because Levine doesn't answer well but lame because the audience's questions are moronic al la: "I never thought I'd see Ben Kingsley make out with an Olson twin. I was just hoping that you could talk about that scene," one gentleman says. Now, granted, it's wild to see Ben Kingsley necking Mary Kate Olson, but ultimately, both are professionals and treat work as such. While asking the question isn't out of bounds in any way, it's a pretty sad commentary of a Sundance audience that that was the question most passionate in its asking.

Trekking back to the bus stop, I phone David Lowery, and neither of us having much to do until later, we meet up at the Java Cow on Main Street and wander out to find a restaurant with vegan options. The first thing I'm struck by in David is how beautiful his eyes are and how very young he looks. Only knowing filmmakers and journalists by photographs, or in David's case, from his cameo in Joe Swanberg's LOL, my version of people is somewhat skewed. I always find that people are more attractive and vibrant in person than in stills.

Attending Slamdance with the third segment of his short A Catalog of Anticipations and now on a break from screenings, David has been aimlessly bumping around Main Street for the last two hours. "I'm not good with making decisions," he says.

"I'm not much either," I say. "When I was in high school, I used to go out with a friend, and we'd drive around--and, he taught me to drive, even though I failed my test three times; I don't know why I told you that. Well, we'd drive around, and he'd ask me where I'd like to eat and I never cared. I was just happy to be with him in that moment, and I'm just happy to be with you in this moment. So, if we don't find a place to eat, it won't bother me. I have granola bars if you're hungry though."

We find a Vietnamese restaurant, and over dinner talk about adolescence, Catholicism and David's upcoming feature film, which, within, the last few days, he's finished casting. "It started as part of this anthology of Web series that Joe [Swanberg] wanted to do. I don't know if he wants to do it anymore. This was a year ago. But, I started working and got four episodes done, and then called Joe, like, 'Sorry, I can't make anymore of these. I'm turning it into a feature.' I just have so much to say."

He's rightly vague about the story, but he mentions that it's about a young brother and sister, and in fact, he's actually working with a real brother and sister actor pair. "They're non-professionals, which is great because they're not thinking about it too much, but they really want to learn."

"How did you get into filmmaking in the first place?" I ask.

"Star Wars," he answers. When he was seven or so, David asked a friend if he'd ever make and film, and while his friend was ambivalent and turned the question back to him, David answered 'yes.'"

"It's cool that you knew that so early," I said. "I always envy artists who know what they want to say early on."

"Yeah," he says. "In my early films, I didn't feel like there was much of me in them."

The three-part A Catalog of Anticipations, however, is a lyrical vision, fully crafted of a pure soul, and when David first sent it to me, here's a portion of what I wrote to him: "...The second section especially is such gorgeous longing without reference to an outside world. The interiority of that piece is such that no other moment can possibly exist in time outside it. For the man, we feel such sadness, such a sense of confusion, the same as he must feel. In that there's nothing of the filmmaking. There's only that isolated series of unspoken emotions. And, then the third piece also--that quiet desperation, that confusion about life. It feels like a segment of not only fantasy but transcendence. It leaves you in a space willing to remember your own childhood fantasies and realities."

I'm happy here, in these moments, with David, as I was happy yesterday in my moments with Karina. I love people when I can see them by themselves. I love everything about them, even when I don't fully understand them. Then again, it's almost impossible to understand anyone.

It's at the Goalith reception later as I sit, curled up on a couch, looking up at a ceiling, that the fatigue, loneliness and outsiderness overcomes me. IFC News Editor Alison Willmore, SM buddy Michael Tully and Karina stand directly in front of me engaged in a conversation about karaoke, and to my side Holly Herrick chats with women I can't quite see from my vantage point. In this quiet observation of people, who like David, are much more beautiful than their photographs, I find myself sad, and as if to mirror my thoughts, the lights black out. A few mild protestations circulate the darkened room, and light conversations continue to ring in the space.

At some point many minutes later Matt Dentler winds his way into the crowd and tells us to come out to the balcony. The whole of Main Street has blacked out. David somewhere behind me, I follow shadows to the balcony, and out there, only car lights, and a few houses on the hill, shine out. Park City is a town covered in blankets. It's a cue, I take, for me to go home. Somewhat intimated by nice guy Dentler, I say a quick hello and saddle out of the club, stepping out in front of Alison and Karina, who light their way down the escalators with the glow of their cell phones.

As I leave the town to its darkness, feeling immeasurably small, I recall a statement that Quentin Tarantino made as I was leaving the Racquet Club earlier in the night: "I'm here to see movies," he'd said. "That's why I'm here."