2017 Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is known for discovering new talent that is destined for stardom. Harris Dickinson is a perfect example.

Carpinteros didn’t just become the first Dominican film to have been admitted to the Sundance Film Festival’s International Competition, it also managed to open to good reviews from critics and the public alike. Entirely shot in three different prisons, the film blends professional actors with actual inmates, creating a whole new level or realism to the film.

Sundance is that rare festival that does not shy away from opening with a documentary. This year was no exception, and Al Gore’s urgent wake-up call with An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power was just the beginning of a series that spanned every topic from Hulk Hogan to Jonbenet Ramsey, from law enforcement to water heist, protests, labor rights and kill safaris, from dancing to surfing to doping and gut wrenching war stories.

It was a delightful surprise during this Sundance Film Festival. Usually, the idea of a film with a non-professional cast depicting a small story inside a close-knit community may not be so appealing, but the freshness and authenticity with which first-time director Joshua Weinstein infuses Menashe overcomes those hurdles.

With record winter rains in California, and freezing temps hitting middle America – what does one wear? Sundance is a blueprint for how to look good and stay warm.  While winter usually means dark somber dreary … well you get the picture.

It’s been a busy festival for Sundance regular – and lifetime honorary Hobbit – Elijah Wood. The actor/producer was at Eccles for the premiere of Macon Blair’s I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, a quirky millennial noir, which takes an unexpected turn into gore territory (think Coen Bros).

Hailing from Tennessee, forty year-old writer-director Dee Rees received one of the festival’s warmest receptions this year with Mudbound. The film is a tale of love, heartbreak and friendship set against the Jim Crow South, in the aftermath of the Second World War (when indignities against returning African Americans began to really underscore the injustice of segregation).

Shortly after the premiere of Mudbound word spread in Park City that the film includes one of Carey Mulligan’s best performances. The Golden Globe nominated actress plays Laura, the wife of a man who buys a country property in the segregated South.

One week after receiving a standing ovation at its Eccles Theater premiere, Dee Rees' Mudbound was still available for purchase, which is one of the biggest surprises of this year's Sundance Film Festival. Anybody who was at that screening left convinced that it was only a matter of hours until the bleak story of love, friendship and misery would be sold for big money to a U.

It was Laia Costa’s first time in Sundance but, if one is to judge from her career trajectory so far, it probably won’t be her last. That’s because the Catalan actress has become one of the biggest new promises of Hollywood.