Virginia Yapp

Our time on the mountain during the 2020 Sundance Film Festival was split between the premieres of 118 features, 74 shorts, 8 episodic works, and 9 special events, not to mention countless parties, panels, and live music. (Oh, and snorkeling around the pool at Festival HQ for Spaced Out, a New Frontier project.)

We also celebrated our longtime Festival director, John Cooper, who closed out his tenure in style with a choreographed “Last Dance” routine (complete with backup dancers) at our Awards Ceremony; we welcomed our new Festival director, Tabitha Jackson, previously director of our Documentary Film Program; and we gathered around a bonfire at dusk to kick off a new decade and imagine a brighter future.

Relive the highlights from the 2020 Festival with us now!

Day 1

Opening night was a big one, complete with the world premiere of Crip Camp, Sundance Institute’s An Artist at the Table benefit presented by IMDbPro, and Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated arrival in Park City (hello, Miss Americana!). Our founder, Robert Redford, kicked off the night with an emotional goodbye to our Festival director, John Cooper.

• ‘Crip Camp’ Traces Disability Rights Movement Origins to a ’70s Camp for Teens
• ‘Cuties’ Invites You to Be an 11-Year-Old Girl—Through All the Highs and Lows
• ‘The Painter and the Thief’ Creates a Portrait of Two Lost Souls
• ‘Summertime’ Is a Free-Verse Love Letter to Los Angeles from 27 Young Poets

Day 2

On Day Two, the big premieres just kept on coming! We went road-tripping with Zola, saw democracy in action in Boys State, and stayed up late with The Night House. Earlier on, director Ron Howard kicked off our Cinema Cafe series, presented by Variety, in a chat about his harrowing but ultimately uplifting documentary Rebuilding Paradise.

• ‘Boys State’ Offers Up Political Hope in the Form of a Texas-Sized Youth Election
• Meet the ACLU Lawyers Battling for Civil Rights in ‘The Fight’
• Girl Meets Roller Coaster: Take a Ride with the Unconventional Love Story of ‘Jumbo’
• A Fallen Pageant Queen Chases the American Dream in ‘Miss Juneteenth’

Day 3

Day Three got off to a bang with the arrival of Hillary Clinton, who was in town for the first screening of Nanette Burstein’s four-part documentary series Hillary. Across town, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s much-anticipated documentary On the Record had its world premiere, and musicians Carrie Brownstein and Annie Clark (St. Vincent) stopped by Cinema Café to talk about The Nowhere Inn, the absurdist meta-film they co-wrote and co-star in.

• With ‘The 40-Year-Old Version,’ Radha Blank Reconfigures the Indie Film Canon
• Director Rodrigo Garcia Returns to the Festival for a Fifth Time with ‘Four Good Days’
• ‘The Mole Agent’ Will Make You Want to Call Your Parents and Grandparents
• Elisabeth Moss Goes to Extremes in Horror-Author Psychodrama ‘Shirley’
• ‘Wander Darkly’ Through Love and Memory with Sienna Miller and Diego Luna

Day 4

On Day Four, we took a quick road trip to Palm Springs, hunted truffles in Italy, took a dip in the pool at Festival HQ with New Frontier’s Spaced Out, saw The National’s Matt Berninger play at the ASCAP Music Café, and then attended a live taping of the Thirst Aid Kit podcast with actors Daniel Dae Kim (Blast Beat) and Kendrick Sampson (Miss Juneteenth). Plus, legendary women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem arrived for the premiere of Julie Taymor’s The Glorias.

• Gloria Steinem Had Faith That Julie Taymor Would Do Her Life Justice in ‘The Glorias’
• Jude Law in ‘The Nest’: An Isolated Country Estate Is the Wrong Move for a Family on the Edge
• ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’: A Visceral Look at What’s at Stake in the Battle for Abortion Rights
• ‘Palm Springs’: Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti Serve Up a Playful Romp on Love and Existential Dread
• With an Oedipal Twist, ‘Summer White’ Sets Fire to Your Typical Coming-of-Age Narrative
• ‘The Truffle Hunters’ Is the Heartwarming Man-and-His-Dog Doc You Didn’t Know You Needed

Day 5

On the day that marked the Festival’s halfway point, we hosted the annual Women at Sundance Celebration, where we got to watch Radha “RadhaMUS Prime” Blank perform, and we heard from Eva Longoria, Gloria Steinem, and Hillary Clinton on the future they imagine for women and gender non-conforming artists. We also awarded our Merata Mita Fellowship to filmmaker Leya Hale during our Native Forum Breakfast. Ethan Hawke was on hand for the world premiere of Tesla, the unconventional biopic by Michael Almereyda, and Alison Brie made her screenwriting debut with Horse Girl.

• An Onslaught of Microaggressions Form the Basis of Sweaty, Tension-Filled ‘Exil’
• Horror Film ‘Relic’ Explores Dementia While Avoiding the ‘Crazy Old Lady Horror Trope’
• Eugene Ashe and Cast Create a New Classic with Period Romance ‘Sylvie’s Love’
• Michael Almereyda’s ‘Tesla’ Was Inspired by Derek Jarman—and ‘Drunk History’

Day 6

On Day Six, we celebrated our short film artists and announced the winners at our Short Film Awards. Jurors Marcus Hu, Sian Clifford, and Cindy Sherman were in the house for the ceremony—see the complete list of winners here. We also stopped by Cinema Café for a conversation on representation in the film industry with actresses Zazie Beetz (Nine Days), Elle Lorraine (Bad Hair), and Taylour Paige (Zola) and hosted nearly 40 community organizations for a packed free screening of Coded Bias in Salt Lake City.

• ‘The Dissident’ Provides Chilling Insights into the Death of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi
• ‘Minari’ Breaks Down Preconceptions of Rural Life, Korean American Immigrant Life to Find the Universal

Day 7

On Wednesday, aka Volunteer Appreciation Day, we gave it up for the real stars of the Festival. We’re so thankful for the 2,400 pairs of helping hands that keep things running here in Park City. Also yesterday, Lisa Loeb performed at the BMI Snowball Showcase, while The Bird and the Bee played the ASCAP Music Café, and at the Filmmaker Lodge, we heard creatives speak on the topic “How Can Artists Reshape Politics?”

• Starring in ‘Charm City Kings’ Has Already Changed the Lives of Real-Life Baltimore Dirt-Bikers
• Anthony Hopkins and Florian Zeller Hit a High Note with Dementia Drama ‘The Father’
• Satirical ‘Save Yourselves!’ Challenges Tech-Dependent Millennials to Survive an Apocalypse
• In ‘Some Kind of Heaven,’ a Young Filmmaker Cracks the Manicured Facade of the World’s Largest Retirement Community
• Murder-Rampage Thriller ‘Spree’ Takes on Livestreaming, Social Media, and the Gig Economy

Day 8

On Day 8, we invited the local community to take part in something extra special—a ritual as old as storytelling itself. Just after dusk, led by drummers from the Ute tribe, we gathered around a bonfire to welcome the start of a new decade and dream of our imagined futures. Falling writer/director/actor Viggo Mortensen and poet Staceyann Chin joined us at our Power of Story event, where we brought to life the voices of rebels, dissenters, and visionaries past and present; ZZ Ward performed at the ASCAP Music Café; and Festivalgoers experienced Anti-Gone, a groundbreaking New Frontier piece that’s part theatre, part videogame.

• ‘Coded Bias’ Exposes the Tech Made without Women and People of Color in Mind—and the Dangers of Rectifying That
• The Threat of Deportation Looms Large for an Immigrant Teen in ‘La Leyenda Negra’
• Fall in Love with Nepal in ‘The Mountains Are a Dream That Call to Me’

Day 9

After the world premiere of Max Richter’s Sleep, influential composer Max Richter performed a live 90-minute version of his eight-hour opus. At the Filmmaker Lodge, Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht, and Michelle Miles joined us for “The New Aesthetics of Disability” panel, and Steven Dayvid McKellar of Civil Twilight performed at the ASCAP Music Café.

• ‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’: A Documentarian Mourns Her Father While He’s Still Alive
• Bring a Pillow and Dream Along with ‘Max Richter’s Sleep,’ a Sumptuous Chronicle of an Eight-Hour Live Performance
• In ‘Mucho Mucho Amor,’ Get to Know the Fabulous TV Astrologer Who Was a Staple in Latinx Homes for 30 Years
• Post-Parkland Doc ‘Us Kids’ Plays Witness to a Major Youth-Led Movement

Day 10

At our Awards Ceremony, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari took home the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic presented by Acura. Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary for Boys State, while Radha Blank received our Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic for The 40-Year-Old Version. On the international front, Massoud Bahkshi secured the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic for Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness. And Hubert Sauper obtained the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary with Epicentro. See the full list of award winners.

P.S.: A few of the 2020 Festival’s selections will hit theaters this month. See where to find them here.