As Seen at Sundance

The talk of the ski town at this year's film festival.

- Rebecca Alter

In Park City, Utah, at the first in-person Sundance Film Festival since 2020, you could go be devastated by the Cynthia Erivo-Alia Shawkat film Drift, about an impoverished refugee, then fête it in a lounge at an after-party sponsored by Chase Sapphire. Sundance has always been half about the movies and half about the atmosphere surrounding them. Strangers talk to you in line for coffee or for a panel. You go to a temporary outpost of Tao and see former network-TV star [redacted] dragged out shit-faced. It's in these spaces where hype ferments and introductions are made and the upcoming year in cinema is decided.

One of the biggest stories this year is that the majority of feature films that premiered were directed by women; some high-profile, positively received examples include the full-sentence titles You Hurt My Feelings (from Nicole Holofcener) and