As a young filmmaker and rising college senior, I feel like I am facing every crossroad imaginable. This past winter quarter, I attended the Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles as a marketing and distribution intern for the documentary Snowland by Jill Orschel. Orschel is an award-winning documentarian who has screened films and won awards at festivals such as Sundance and South by Southwest. Her film follows a former child bride's escape from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and creation of a book series that is also called Snowland. As a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, it has been immensely rewarding to work on this project.
I first engaged with Orschel’s work when my professor, Warren Etheredge, assigned her short film Sister Wife while I was writing a script about an escaped FLDS child bride as part of my Advanced Screenwriting course. About a year later, I was introduced to her while I was writing a short documentary called Love Is Real, which follows a musician as he reflects on his upbringing in the now nearly disbanded Love Family cult. When I first met Orschel, I did not expect to get an internship that would garner me a key role in a feature film’s distribution process. I am immensely grateful for the education this role has provided me on how to go about distributing my first short film, Lingering.
When I first signed onto this project, I did not expect to find myself attending the Slamdance Film Festival. This was the first film festival I have ever attended, and it was a very special experience to say the least. During my brief time there, I attended panels, screenings, photographed events for Snowland, and even filmed social media content for the film as well. I met independent filmmakers who shared invaluable advice with me. Their insights were the most important thing I gained from this experience. During my brief time at this festival felt like my first official step into the film industry. I certainly still have a long way to go as a filmmaker, but now that I have taken this first step, I feel more confident about my decision to dedicate my life to filmmaking.
Anna Robbins