Sundance

Sundance 2018 officially got underway with that time-honored ritual: the opening day press conference with founder and figurehead Robert Redford was joined on stage by Sundance Festival programmer John Cooper and Sundance Institute director Keri Putnam. Some of the proceedings were familiar to anyone who has trekked up Heber Pass to attend the festival before.

With Venice, Cannes is the grande dame of film festivals one of the last bastions of pure cinema in its original form: an art form made to be seen in a theater. But even these last bastions of cinematic purity there are intimations of growing pains.

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.

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.

The snowstorm that hit Park City might intimidate the average man but it is just another day in the crazy geographical life of Jason Isaacs. Here is an actor who has spent the last twelve months working in such locales as Australia, Tokyo, Mumbai, Cuba, New York, London and Winnipeg so 18 inches of fresh powder is hardly going to slow him down.

Nobody can bring a spark of humor and a healthy helping of down-to-earth like Salma Hayek. Whether at glitzy awards shows or glamorous film festivals, you can count on the jet setting Mexican actress to take the proceedings in stride and with the signature cheekiness which makes her hands down the dinner party guest you most want to sit next to.

Just ahead of the blizzard, which blanketed Park City with three feet of snow (testing even the most veteran festivalgoers) a welcome touch of cinematic class blew in from Europe in the form of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name. The Italian director is no stranger to Park City having shown his I Am Love here five years ago.