Sundance: Part One from Mirror on Vimeo.
• Kartina Richardson in Park City
Why is it that the culture surrounding art is so far removed from the process of making that art? I suspect this week is hell for many filmmakers here. The world you have to exist in as a great artist (one that values the interior over the exterior, the spiritual over the corporeal) is directly opposed the world you have to exist in to get your movie made. I wonder how many other people here are wondering what’s wrong with them. How many people are pretending they love partying in order to not feel like a weirdo.
I wish I could bundle up all the filmmakers and creatives and whisk them far away to a magical island where movies are made and seen without any of this bullshit hustle-bustle.
My friend Te’Devan doesn’t agree with me. He thinks Sundance is great, and I know that in a way he’s right. No place is really inherently the pits, and if there is no “I” nothing can bother you. I met Te’Devan on the subway in New York a year ago, and I never saw him again until he appeared before me here at Sundance. Te’Devan is a wandering spiritual nomadic couch surfer, in our terms, and a sadhu, in eastern terms. A sadhu is a spiritual seeker who renounces everything in the quest for god.
Says Te’Devan: “Im not a real sadhu because I’m still involved with the world and I’m still involved with projects. I wouldn’t be considered a full sadhu by strict Indian standards — after all I do have a phone — but by western standards I would be considered a sadhu. I travel with one bag.”
As my Sundance buddy, Te’Devan is the Oscar to my Felix. Or I am the Toto to his Dorothy. Or he is the Oprah to my Lance Armstrong. Or I am the Eyore to his Winnie the Pooh. When Te’Devan walks down the street the people love him. Everyone talks to Te’Devan.
He brings spirituality, joy and perspective to a very stressy Sundance.
