Festivals

As with all film festivals, the opening night film is a coveted spot and helps set the tone for audience expectations. For the 2021 online edition of the Sundance Film Festival, that function fell to the drama Coda, written and directed by Sian Heder.

In 1969, famed Italian director Luchino Visconti went on a search to cast the critical part of Tadzio for his then upcoming film Death in Venice. When he discovered a 15-year-old Björn Andrésen in Sweden, he proclaimed that he had found ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’.

No crowds in front of the Egyptian Theatre, no snowboot-clad film fans drudging through the wintery town of Park City and no bustling Main Street. But also, no traffic jams on the first weekend and no waiting in long lines in front of the Eccles, Marc, or other screening locations, freezing and shivering in the hopes of getting in.

Aside from sending a large contingent of journalists to Park City each year to cover the festival (this year less parkas and more slippers!), the HFPA is a longtime supporter of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program and the Women at Sundance Initiative offering creative development opportunities for women behind the camera. This year the institute will once again receive an HFPA grant in support of its invaluable work.

It may be difficult, from the United States, to fully appreciate the stature of Diego Armando Maradona as an athlete and a world figure. The Argentine footballer who died suddenly aged 60 in Buenos Aires was, simply put, the biggest superstar to ever grace a soccer pitch.

Tickets or credentials to a festival these days are mostly virtual. Organizers all over the world have had to adapt to the rules of 2020.

As the 45th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was notable, if nothing else, for the simple fact, that the event actually happened. In this year of the pandemic, where Cannes had to postpone, and Venice maneuvered through the storm, Toronto, seemingly effortlessly, followed.

As the 45th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was notable, if nothing else, for the simple fact, that the event actually happened. In this year of the pandemic, where Cannes had to postpone, and Venice maneuvered through the storm, Toronto, seemingly effortlessly, followed.