Astoria at Sundance

As most of you know, the Sundance Film Festival is one of the biggest independent film festivals in the country, if not the world. Astoria is well represented this year with A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, a film by first-time writer/director Dito Montiel. You may remember this past summer and early fall there being a lot of filming throughout Astoria, locations marked by white papers taped to trees and telephone poles labeled "Recognizing Saints" and the dates the filming was to occur. For me, having just moved to Astoria, it was a little exciting knowing my town was the location for a movie with prominent actors (Robert Downey, Jr., Shia La Boeuf, Rosario Dawson, Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest) and a well-known executive producer (Sting). According to the Sundance Guide:

“SAINTS is based on director Dito Montiel's youth during the mid-eighties in the tough neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. All his old friends have ended up dead, as junkies, or in prison; Dito is the proverbial man who got out. For him, the "saints" are the folks he remembers, the ones he left behind. For better or worse, they made him who he is today.”

It screens at Sundance January 20-22, and the 25th and 27th. I hope it shows in Astoria after its run in Utah!