But there’s one thing Kielbasa won’t have to worry about: slipping on slushy snow and bumping into a metal barricade, as he did one night in January at the chilly Sundance Film Festival in Utah. That stumble on Park City’s Historic Main Street was about the only misstep made by the fast-moving Kielbasa during a week at America’s most prestigious film festival.

He and several other staff members went to Sundance in part to scout for features and documentaries that they could present in Sarasota. But because Sundance is the film industry’s version of a political convention (with some Super Bowl-style hype thrown in), Kielbasa also spent time networking, schmoozing and spreading the word about the Sarasota festival. At film screenings, lunches and late-night parties with techno music pulsating, Kielbasa chatted with actors, producers, publicists and distributors. One night, he even cornered powerful studio head Harvey Weinstein, who left the encounter with a Sarasota Film Festival postcard in his pocket.

I spent the week shadowing Kielbasa and his colleagues, wearing my borrowed ski parka, gloves and hiking boots, which never seemed to ward off temperatures that dropped to the single digits at times. Here is my Sundance diary.

Because of an ice storm in Atlanta (a harrowing experience for a nervous flier like me), I arrive in Salt Lake City mid-afternoon, nearly three hours late. It’s a half-hour ride into the Wasatch Mountains to Park City, a former silver-mining town and now a popular ski resort with a permanent population of 7,000.

During the 10-day festival, the streets are a lot more crowded than the slopes. More than 50,000 people, including 1,000 journalists from around the world, will attend Sundance screenings.

All 1,000 reporters seem to be in front of me in the slow-moving line for press credentials at festival headquarters. But I get my badge in time to hear Sundance founder and president Robert Redford introduce the opening-night film, the documentary Chicago 10.

The movie deals with the Vietnam War protesters who were prosecuted for leading a massive anti-war rally in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention. Debuting only a week after President Bush announced a "surge" of American forces in Iraq, the documentary couldn’t be more current.

"This film is about another time when young people raised their voices in protest of what they felt was wrong and put themselves in harm’s way," Redford says from the stage of the 1,270-seat Eccles Theatre, a high-school auditorium that’s one of eight venues for Sundance films.

It’s 7 degrees as I wait for a shuttle bus to take me to a press/industry screening at 8:30 a.m. I catch the bus near the townhouse where I’m staying on the outskirts of Park City. It belongs to some friends who, wisely, are in their winter home in Naples this time of year. I’m fortunate that they invited me to stay in their comfortable Park City home, because hotel rooms must be booked a year in advance at festival time. Rooms start at $300 a night and escalate to $700 a night at the posh Stein Erickson Lodge.

At 11 a.m., I join Kielbasa at a screening of Away From Her, a poignant film that stars Julie Christie as a woman struggling with the onset of dementia. The film has already been booked for the Sarasota festival, but Kielbasa hasn’t seen it yet. We are both moved by this understated work and agree that it should resonate with Sarasota audiences.

Kielbasa and I head for lunch on Historic Main Street, a six-block long stretch of colorful 19th-century buildings that have been converted into restaurants, cafes and galleries. During the festival, corporate sponsors take over some of the buildings. Part of the Kimball Art Center becomes the Entertainment Weekly CafÈ, for example. There are also an AOL Cyber Lodge and the Delta Air Lines Sky Lodge.

This is only the second time Kielbasa has been to Sundance because, until last year, Sundance and the Sarasota festival overlapped.

"The entertainment industry is relatively small, so it’s important to show your face here, to make contacts," Kielbasa says. "I’ll run into somebody from [the specialty film studio] Fox Searchlight, for example, and then I’ve got a connection the next time we call Fox Searchlight for a film."

After lunch, I race to two more screenings, including the 6:30 p.m. world premiere of The Savages, a touching, funny film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as siblings caring for an elderly parent. Like most of the public screenings at Sundance, this one, in the 1,270-seat Eccles, is sold out. A couple hundred people are standing outdoors in the cold in the waiting-list line. "Got any extra tickets?" a frozen-faced guy implores as my shuttle bus arrives.

At a question-and-answer session after the film, director Tamara Jenkins says The Savages was finished only two days ago. And how important is a showcase at Sundance? Well, Hoffman flew in from Australia two hours before the premiere, and Linney came all the way from Argentina, where she was shooting her next movie.

After the screening, I head back to Main Street and grab a take-out sandwich from a deli, since there are lines outside most of the restaurants. I’m on my way home to turn in early when I get a call from Kielbasa, who has an extra ticket for a 9:30 p.m. film, An American Crime.

As we’re sitting in the theater, Kielbasa discovers the entertainment world is even smaller than he thought. The co-screenwriter of An American Crime is Irene Turner, who once was a stage manager at the Tamarind, a theater Kielbasa used to run in Los Angeles. They greet each other warmly after the film, while cast members Catherine Keener, James Franco and Bradley Whitford take the stage to answer questions from the audience.

Then Kielbasa invites me to join him at a late-night party sponsored by Premiere magazine, which has taken over a Main Street restaurant for the week. When we get there, two burly security guys are informing a line of would-be guests that the room is too crowded, so nobody else will be admitted.

"But we’re with the Italian press, and we’re on the list," a wavy-haired young man says.

"I don’t care, buddy, you’re not gettin’ in," one of the bouncers says.

Another man presses his case by dropping a couple of names, but the security guy shakes his head. "They hire us because we’re ignorant," he says. "We don’t know how important anybody is, so those names mean nothing to us."

But Kielbasa is undeterred. He makes a cell phone call, and soon Paul Turcotte, the publisher of Premiere (who had been to last year’s Sarasota festival), comes down and waves us in. The Italian press guys seethe with envy.

With flurries drifting down onto the quaint streets, Park City looks like a scene from a snow globe today. There’s a ski lift right in the middle of Main Street, so skiers and snowboarders are trudging down the sidewalks past TV crews from CNN and Access Hollywood..

At about noon, the celebrities are flying by faster than the snowflakes. Outside the Heineken Green Room at the foot of Main Street, 50 photographers and many more spectators are waiting as Teri Hatcher, Kyra Sedgwick, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon and Tara Reid pick up shopping bags full of free goodies from various clothing and cosmetic companies. I’m told that I just missed Justin Timberlake (who’s in a festival film), and I hear that Anthony Hopkins (whose first directorial effort, Slipstream, premieres tonight) is on his way. The thought of seeing Sir Anthony picking up swag bags is too dispiriting, so I move on.

All this stargazing is a sore spot for organizers of Sundance, who are sensitive to criticism that the festival has strayed from Redford’s original goal of creating a showcase for out-of-the-mainstream independent film. Detractors say the festival has "gone Hollywood" and is now more about commerce than art. Much of the press focuses on what films sell for what amount, and on which celebrity is spotted at which party. Many think Sundance reached a new low last year, when Paris Hilton showed up.

So this year, Sundance volunteers are passing out "Focus on Film" buttons, which to me seems as alarming an idea as those "Whip Inflation Now" buttons that Gerald Ford trotted out in the ‘70s. If you have to remind Sundance audiences to focus on film, something is wrong.

"I do think things got out of whack last year," Kielbasa tells me. "There were too many celebrities, too much swag, too many high-end commercial studio films that were being launched here. Clearly, there’s been a course-correction this year."

Indeed, this year’s lineup is heavy on documentaries about war, genocide, global warming and torture, as well as tough, edgy features like An American Crime, inspired by an unimaginable real-life murder, and Trade, a film about the sex-slave industry.

At 8 p.m., I attend a screening of Save Me, a moving drama about a young man who enters an "ex-gay" ministry. To make it, I have to skip a party for actor Aaron Eckhart in a trendy Park City bar. Kielbasa had put me on the party list, and he seems surprised when he learns I missed it. So I remind him that I was heeding the admonition to "Focus on Film."

After sleeping in for a change, I join Kielbasa at a press/industry screening of The Interview, a film in which a journalist (Steve Buscemi) and a beautiful movie star (Sienna Miller) engage in an evening-long verbal duel. Kielbasa and I expect the best from Buscemi, and aren’t disappointed. But the funny and ferocious performance by Miller blows us away.

After the screening, we’re told that the cast will be available for a press conference in a Main Street lounge. Since Kielbasa is eager to bring The Interview to Sarasota, he accompanies me to the conference.

But when we get there, a haughty woman with a clipboard informs us that the conference "is only for the top press." When I complain, she retreats for a moment, then returns to say that because of space limitations, either Kielbasa or I can attend, but not both of us. Since I know Kielbasa is eager to talk to Buscemi about Sarasota, I decide to let him take my place. That way I can claim credit when The Interview is shown in Sarasota.

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like a second-class citizen at Sundance. Like every other credentialed member of the press or the film industry, I wear a big badge around my neck, which has my picture, my name and my affiliation. Whenever you enter a room, people are subtly checking you out to see if you are an important critic or a film distributor with the power to change lives. Dozens of times, I’ve seen flickers of disappointment cross people’s faces when they study my badge. I guess "Charlie Huisking, SARASOTA Magazine" just doesn’t do it for them.

Following an afternoon press conference for the Creative Coalition, a film industry group interested in social issues, actor Joe Pantoliano greets Kielbasa warmly. Pantoliano has just learned that his new film Canvas, a drama about schizophrenia, will be screened in Sarasota.

"I’m so glad you liked the movie, Jody," says Pantoliano, a former Sopranos cast member who was in Sarasota last year with the film The Amateurs.

Pantoliano tells me he feels the Sarasota festival "has the kind of positive feeling and spirit that Sundance did 15 years ago. I really feel Sarasota is poised to be one of the best festivals around." He says he’s eager to return to Sarasota, even though "I hate Florida. But Sarasota and Longboat Key are beautiful. They are the only places I would go."