This Sundance Film Festival was my first time Sundancing (as the cooler regulars definitely DO NOT call it) and I had a few realizations and knee-jerk reactions to the experience. First and foremost, it’s cold — like really, really cold in Park City, and it never seemed to stop snowing. Park City is also nestled in the clouds with an altitude of anywhere between 6,500 and 10,000 miles above sea level. This meant that some of us non-locals were navigating the ice dizzy and short of breath, searching for any inkling of a WIFI signal to direct us to the next screening.

As a native New Yorker, I’m not new to snow or arctic weather, but Sundance gives a whole new meaning to the phrase winter is coming. I had to learn how to walk like a penguin from bus to shuttle stop as black Escalades carrying the more privileged zoomed by. On the plus side, the chill necessitated the best fashion I’ve seen at any festival thus far—I’m not sure there’s anything fiercer than hordes of women strutting in and out of theaters in sleek tall boots and a faux-fur lined winter coats.

Unfortunately, Utah is fairly restrictive about alcohol consumption so the warm and toasty Irish coffee or hot toddy that I’d normally thaw out with was hard to find and illegal to consume in most places after late-night screenings. Again, I think A-listers probably had a completely different experience as I’m sure there were many bumping parties happening behind the scenes but, for regular ol’ press, trouble was not easy to get into.

And then there was getting entry into the events. There were many different, enigmatic press badges granted pre-festival which pretty much determined if you’d get to experience premieres or if you’d be waiting in the snow for upwards of an hour, only to be told that you had no chance of getting into an event.

Of the movies I did get to see, there were so many that, for better or for worse, left an impression on me. I will never listen to the 80’s Breathe classic “Hands to Heaven” the same way after watching a particularly arresting scene in Sometimes I Think About Dying. I will also never look at a muscle magazine without shuddering after watching Magazine Dreams.

And watching the two Irish films I went to cover for my outlet, Flora and Son and The Deepest Breath, made me appreciate the moment that Irish film is having. From seeing The Banshees of Inisherin win big at the Golden Globes to Apple immediately signing Flora and Son (just hours after its premiere) to their second-largest streaming contract (after the Oscar-winning CODA), I feel like I’m at the right place at the right time. 

All in all, I left the snow with a deep appreciation for film and filmmakers as Sundance showcases over 100 films in about a week, which made me realize how many blood-sweat-and-tears-projects never see the light of day or, more specifically, the pleasant dark of a theater.