The yearly cycle of festivals begins today in Park City, Utah, with the 2017 edition of Sundance. As usual, we can expect bidding wars, breakout stars and lots of parties and commotion at premiere screenings. But this will not be like any other Sundance.

For starters, there’s a highly controversial presidential inauguration on day 2 of the festival. And, on day 3, a march down Park City’s Main Street, organized by a group not affiliated with the festival, led by comedian and TV personality Chelsea Handler. ‘Sundance has always been a platform for change: not only for filmmakers and filmmaking, but also for big ideas for the future,” she said in a statement. “If there’s anything I learned in the last year, it’s that we need to be louder and stronger than ever about what we believe in, so I joined some incredible women from around the country to bring our voices together in the streets of Park City.”

Stars of all magnitudes are expected to attend the march – taking place from 9 AM to 11 AM  on Saturday – but this is just one element in this year’s charged atmosphere. The discussion on where to go from here – galvanized by Meryl Streep’s historical speech at this year’s Golden Globes – is bound to be a key element at this yearly gathering of independent creatives and executives.

Beyond the political, this year’s Sundance will once again reinforce the importance of new distribution channels, with streaming platforms going head-to-head with independent theatrical distributors for the cream of the Park City crop. The festival hadn’t yet started and some of hottest Sundance titles had already found generous homes: Netflix bought all rights to the documentary Casting JonBenet and the dark drama I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, starring Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood, with Blue Ruin star Macon Blair debuting as director. Sony Pictures Classics acquired (to the tune of $6 million) global rights to the gay love story Call Me by Your Name, directed by Luca Guadagino (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash) and starring Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg. And A24 snapped A Ghost Story, a supernatural drama directed by David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) and starring Rooney Mara and Golden Globe winner (for Manchester by the Sea) Casey Affleck.

Affleck, of course, landed at the core of the 2017 awards season thanks to the push director Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea received at Sundance 2016. While other favorites of Park City fizzled – chief among them The Birth of a Nation, which seemed bound for certain award glory – Manchester maintained a steady course.

Which of the 120 titles showing at this year’s Sundance will have the stamina to stay the course this time? Could it be the Judd Apatow-produced comedy The Big Sick, directed by Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name is Doris) written by and starring Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjitani? The frontier adventure-drama Wind River, the directorial debut of Hell or High Water writer Taylor Sheridan, starring Jeremy Renner? Director Miguel Arteta’s first film in six years, Beatriz At Dinner, written by his Enlightened partner Mike White, and starring Salma Hayek?

Let’s see what 10 years of snow and passionate discussions will bring.