Maybe you’ve walked past the Treasure Mountain Inn at the top of Park City’s Main Street during the last week in January and wondered: What’s going on in there? For 21 years the Slamdance Film Festival has been offering a laid-back alternative to the frenzy of Sundance. It’s billed as the only film festival run entirely by filmmakers, with alumni from each year returning to program the festival the following year. Filmmakers ranging from Girls’ Lena Dunham to Paranormal Activity’s Oren Peli have used Slamdance as a launch pad for their careers.

This year, Jamie Sisley, a 2014 Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow, brought his narrative short film Stay Awake to the festival. Film Independent blogger Tom Sveen, a co-producer on Stay Awake, was there to get the scoop on a week at Park City’s other festival.

Thursday, January 22, 7:25 pm – Arrival
There’s nothing quite like arriving at the airport at the start of the Sundance Film Festival. You’re exhausted, you’re excited and the airport is teeming with familiar faces. “Getting into the airport was chaos,” says Jamie. “It’s full of people and you recognize filmmakers. I had a freak-out because I recognized [documentarian] Stanley Nelson [at Sundance with his most recent film The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution] who’s like one of my gods of documentary film. So I was freaking out and he was there with his family just walking by.”

Friday, January 23, 1:20 pm – First screening, opening day of Slamdance
Minutes before the screening, fresh from the airport—“We have to remember to send our shuttle driver a link because he wants to see the movie”—Stay Awake producer Sarah Dorman is standing at the ticket table trying to purchase a few more tickets for the screening. In comparison to the multi-step, several-month-long process of acquiring Sundance tickets, buying Slamdance tickets is relatively simple: you show up at the table in the lobby of the Treasure Mountain Inn at any point during the festival and you see if they have any tickets left. They usually do. Today, however, Shorts Block 2 is sold out.

With some creative maneuvering and a little bit of waiting in one of the rush lines that snakes through the Inn’s first floor hallway, Sarah manages to get our whole team in.

The room goes dark. The screen lights up.

“It was an emotionally charged room,” says Sarah of that first screening. “You could feel the excitement.”

“It was a head rush,” says Jamie. “It was great to see and hear the audience’s reactions and what worked and what didn’t…It was really rewarding and fun.”

Stay Awake is about a pair of brothers dealing with the cycle of their mother’s prescription drug addiction. The film balances the gravity of addiction with the humor of the boys’ everyday lives.

In the Q&A, a woman sitting in the third row says she appreciates the film’s realistic take on the relationships within a family.

“There’s so much hostility in most films these days,” says the audience member, “and to show the connectedness of the sons and their love for their mother, it was really a pleasure to watch.”

Jamie is thankful to premiere the film in such a receptive room. “The audiences at Slamdance were very open. They wanted to embrace new, fresh things,” says Jamie. “That’s the biggest complement I could receive as a filmmaker is just to see a group that engaged in what we made.”

Friday, January 23, 6:15 pm – Filmmaker Welcome
The Ballroom, the larger of Slamdance’s two screening rooms, is packed. But it’s not for a screening. The filmmaking teams from every film in the festival fill the seats, stretch out in the aisles and huddle along the walls.

Everyone expects we’ll just have a drink, hear a few words from the people in charge and be on our merry way. But when Slamdance President and co-Founder Peter Baxter invites everyone in the room to go around introduce themselves and the film they’re with, a low murmur spreads through the crowd. There must be 200 people in here.

Before long, however, everyone is shouting out their name and offering colorful descriptions of their films. The room is filled with laughter and smiles.

Friday, January 23, 11:00 pm – Outside the Slamdance Opening Night Party
One of the first things anyone who’s never been to Sundance thinks of when they think about the festival is lots of parties with celebrities galore. The first thing anyone who has been there thinks about is lots of waiting in line for parties in the freezing cold. And that’s where we find ourselves that first night.

The Slamdance opening night party is packed. And the line to get in is long. After about half an hour of waiting, and with no hope of entry in sight, we decide to call it a night.

Saturday, January 24, 5:30 pm – Happy Hours
Every day of the festival, Slamdance offers filmmakers a chance to connect over a free drink (and if you’re lucky, a Carhartt beanie) at their happy hours. “You can really walk up to anybody and there’s no pretense at all,” he says. “You can just go up to somebody whose film you just saw and say, ‘Hey, I really liked your film,’ and then you have a 30-minute conversation about how they make puppets. It’s great.”

Today, we end up chatting with festival co-founder Dan Mirvish, who regales us for the better part of an hour with stories from the early days of Slamdance.

“Not once did I ever see him looking down at my badge, which I think says a lot about what Slamdance is. There are no hierarchies,” says Jamie. “It’s just a bunch of people who really love film and who want to extend that joy to others who feel the same way.”

Sunday, January 25, 2:45 pm – The red carpet
Slamdance banners line two walls of the Filmmaker Lounge. Representatives of various media outlets have gathered to snap a few pictures and get the scoop on each of the festival’s films.

We let our fearless director tackle the questions. He admits that it takes him a little while to get into the groove.

“At the beginning of the line, I was like, ‘It’s about a mother who has this drug addiction,’ and by the end, the microphone had wilted,” says Jamie of his first red carpet experience. “By the time I got to the last person, I just said it was about brotherly love, and then everyone was like, ‘That sounds great! I like love!’ It was a good learning experience.”

Monday, January 26, 10:20 pm – Back at the Condo
Monday is a full day of screenings. When asked to name their favorites thus far, both of my colleagues list Sundance films. Mistress America and The End of the Tour for Sarah; Bob and the Trees for Jamie. I ask if either of them feel conflicted at all about taking advantage of the Sundance screenings, while attending Slamdance with our film.

“It’s been great to be able to bounce back and forth between the two,” says Jamie.

“I just wish I could be in two places at once so I could be seeing everything,” says Sarah.

We spend some time mulling over a few potential parties, but decide we’re better off staying in and getting an early start on movies in the morning.

Wednesday, January 28, 2:30 pm – After our second screening
We’re back home after our second and final screening at the festival. Both Jamie and Sarah agree that the second screening is easier to enjoy than the first.

“I was shaking through the whole first screening,” says Sarah. “I felt a lot calmer today and more just curious about how people were reacting. I was listening to the room more than I was the first time.”

Thursday, January 29, 9:38 pm – Slamdance Awards
We’re in the Ballroom one last time, waiting with baited breath as the jurors announce the shorts award winners.

“And the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short goes to…”

This is it.

“…Stay Awake, directed by Jamie Sisley.”

The room applauds as Jamie jogs to the front, eyes wide.

“Thanks a lot. We really, really appreciate it.” He pauses looking around the room at the faces of people we didn’t even know a week ago. “To me, it means even more coming from filmmakers, and everyone here is a filmmaker, so thanks for this.”

Thursday, January 29, 10:50 pm – Walking down Main Street
We’re all smiles as we head to the Slamdance Closing Night party. We’ve taken our time clearing out of the Treasure Mountain Inn, snapping a few photos with the filmmaking team from Across the Sea, our friends from film school who won the audience award and honorable mention from the jury. Most of the filmmakers have gone ahead of us to the party, and as we walk down Main Street, it’s just the three of us again.

“Wouldn’t that be hilarious if we didn’t get into the party?” says Jamie.

I pull out my Sundance screening schedule and inform that there’s an 11:30 pm screening of The Witch at Prospector Square. We might be able to sneak in at the end of the waitlist.

We consider for a moment. Then we head down the hill to celebrate a fantastic week with our new Slamdance family.

Tom Sveen / Film Independent Blogger