As always, you find a very eclectic crowd of familiar and new faces at the conference. The big guy on opening day was keynote speaker Robert Rodriguez, who talked about his past projects and future plans for El Rey, his new network. He said two things that stayed with me. One: “If you put a project in front of me and I like it, I’ll put on the network,” and Two: “If I fail at it [the network], please learn from my mistakes.”
This year’s panels were quite interesting as always, like “New Works/New Voices” with Gun Hill Road director Rashaad Ernesto Green, the Tribeca Film Institute’s Tamir Muhammad, and Shari Frilot of the Sundance Film Festival. And that’s just to mention a few.
The first day ended with a screening of Sundance’s darling, Filly Brown, including a Q & A after the screening with co-directors Michael D. Olmos and Youssef Delara; producer Amir Delara and most of the cast on stage. (Filly Brown will be in theaters September 21!)
What a start!
