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It was Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival, and Courtney Love — looking like a deranged Jackie O with a sheer pink scarf draped over her head — was ushered through a crowd and whisked upstairs to “Miami Oasis.”
But “Miami Oasis” is not the name of an edgy new independent film premiering at this year’s Park City, Utah, festival.
It’s a gifting suite, where, after a couple of minutes and a few obligatory press pictures, Love walked away with a $695 Rudsak leather jacket, $600 worth of Johnny Was tops, and a $2 bottle of Hint water. After all, it’s easy to get dehydrated when you’re swagging on the slopes.
The air may be thin, but the greed is thick at “Swagdance” where hundreds of wealthy stars are handed freebies like hummus, blow dryers and Ugg boots at the fest’s seven main gifting suites. In return, celebs grant each brand with a low-grade product endorsement.
“It’s the typical trade-off,” says one p.r. girl who oversaw a suite at Sundance and asked not to be named. “Taking a picture in exchange for gifting.”
But the gifting frenzy, which has gone on since the ’90s at the 35-year-old Sundance, has started to irk the festival’s more legitimate attendees.
Even Sundance founder Robert Redford sounded off on the free-for-all, saying the festival is “not as much fun,” because of all the freeloaders.
“There are too many people who come to the festival to leverage their own self-interest,” he said during a panel discussion in Park City on Jan. 17.
Still, who needs movie tickets when you can jostle for free puffer jackets from the Sears suite, just like the gals from Bravo’s “Shahs of Sunset”? “General Hospital” star/crooner Rick Springfield also skipped the flicks to pose for a photo at the Resvology booth, so he could give a bottle of face cream to his wife. Even self-proclaimed aesthete James Franco smiled giddily with a Samsung Galaxy tablet, as photographers snapped away.
“Sundance has grown exponentially, and there are a lot more celebrities coming into town more for the parties and the swag than for the actual films,” confirms Rachel Lafranconi, who works at BMF Media, the NYC-based agency that helps produce Sundance’s suites and parties.
Boldfacers couldn’t resist the allure of free headphones, baseball hats, ski gear, picnic baskets, makeup, razors and even loot from brands like Fresh Step cat litter, Lipton, Cream of Wheat and MorningStar Farms. The swagfest has become so trashy that higher-end designers went underground this year to set up secret suites, where they could gift stars in private.
Christopher Ryan, the unofficial gatekeeper of Sundance who mans the “master list” of parties and lounges that’s e-mailed to VIPs, sees the gimme-more madness firsthand.
Over the weekend, he spotted Hole singer Love at the Fender Lounge bedecked in free Park Lane Jewelry.
“I overheard her saying, ‘No one would ever believe I could afford this,’ ” says Ryan.
The thing is, she can. Which is exactly what peeves off the plebes. “Swagging is a huge part of Sundance, but it’s ironic because the only people getting the really good swag are the celebrities who can already afford it,” says Julie Shapiro, a 31-year-old lawyer who lives in Gramercy and flew out to see a few flicks and, yeah, get some free stuff, too.
But some industry insiders say it’s the Hollywood norm.
“It’s either that or you pay the celebrities to be your spokesperson and pay 20 times what you spend on them in the gift lounge,” says Ryan, dismissing the idea that someone like Franco would be above the circus.
“Does James like tablets? I think he does,” he adds.
“2 Broke Girls” actress Jennifer Coolidge was carrying so many bags when she approached the Udi’s Gluten Free table on Sunday, a p.r. firm enlisted runners to help her carry all the loot. “She had a ton of swag,” says an Udi’s staffer. “And she told us she was obsessed with Udi’s granola, so we had to zip over to the Whole Foods to get more, because we ran out.”
But some celebrities should tame their avarice if they don’t want the gravy train to run out.
“There are some celebrities that are blacklisted,” admits Kari Feinstein, a p.r. maven overseeing her eponymous gifting suite at the fest. “There are a few actors that come up to Sundance that I would say are not high-caliber celebrities, and they literally fly out every year to be gifted, and have not worked on anything for 10 years.”
One of the worst offenders?
Paris Hilton.
“I’ve seen her at various things,” says gatekeeper Ryan. “She’s a little tacky on that end. She doesn’t grab one thing. She says, ‘I want six of those,. five of those.’ I don’t know where the hell she stores this stuff.”
dschuster@nypost.com