The Sundance Film Festival has become a great place for star-struck Utahns to encounter a brush with fame. But star-gazers at Canyons School District need travel only as far as the central office building.
Kirstin Anderson Pearson, who works on CSD’s Help Desk assisting patrons with Skyward, Canvas and other computerized tools, co-produced one of the films chosen to premiere this year at Sundance. The 10-minute-long fictional piece, “The MINORS,” was screened along with a selection of shorts in Park City, and will run once more on Friday, Feb. 1 in Park City.
The film, which is about a grandfather who performs in a band with his grandchildren, won a “Special Jury Award for Directing.” But just making the cut is reward enough. Of more than 9,400 shorts submitted to Sundance, only 73 are being featured this year.
The movie is one of several that Pearson has helped bring to fruition with Utah Director Robert Machoian, a photography professor at Pearson’s alma mater, Brigham Young University (BYU). It was financed with grant money and features Machoian’s father and children in the lead roles, says Pearson whose role was to coordinate various aspects of the film’s production.
For a description of the fictional short, and interview with the Director, see this Deseret News story.