At Sundance: A Weekend of Fun and Film in Park City

By Emily Poenisch

Press credentials you may need, but credentials to The Lift is what you want. Housed at the north end of Main Street, The Lift is home to amenities galore from the MySpace café with its gratis grub and Wi-Fi, to a spa, salon and of course the best swag on the street, at the Fred Segal boutique. Forget all the sneering at the swag scene at Sundance, because the truth is everybody—and I mean everybody—wants in. Show me a person who says they don’t want to stand around slurping sponsor booze, playing Guitar Hero, and getting a free pair of jeans and I will show you a damn, dirty liar. Sad? Perhaps. Ridiculous? Oh yes. When you’re standing in a room stocked with bovine face cream and the entire line of Precious Moments it is hard not to giggle.

But at least this year the suites seem to have made some effort to emphasize a little social responsibility, which, considering there’s a strike going on and the economy’s spiraling the plug-hole, was not a bad idea. Eco-concious brands such as Yudu and 4Stroke are here, and Amnesty International and Rock the Vote are up at the Hype Lounge, where Puma is donating celebrity-designed Mongolian BBQ sneakers to Clothes of our Backs. But back to that bovine face cream, because—I kid you not—this is what it says on the back of the box: “Contains Pure Colostrum, a nutritious bovine milky liquid produced immediately after birth.”

No wonder it’s called La Mystere.