“I’m 82 percent sure I just saw Ethan Hawke walk by me in the Salt Lake airport,” I muttered to my mom over the phone as I hopped on an airport moving walkway. It wouldn’t have been surprising since Hawke’s newest film, “The Weight”, was premiering at Sundance later that week. Needless to say, this encounter made me even more excited to be in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. While others complained about Utah’s chilly temperature, it paled in comparison to the coldest South Bend winter I can remember. Additionally, this would be my first time attending any film festival, let alone Sundance! I hopped off the walkway and headed toward my mom’s gate, preparing to meet her for a weekend of films.
Founded in 1978, the Sundance Film Festival is the largest independent film festival in the United States. Every January, moviegoers from around the country flock to Park City, Utah, a popular skiing location, to watch independent films. Despite some individual titles’ star power, most films don’t have distribution partners upon arrival at the festival. Instead, they hope for a positive reception to drum up interest among buyers such as Netflix, Focus Features, Warner Bros., Neon or A24 and land a distribution deal for theaters or streaming.
This year’s festival was especially interesting for two reasons. First, it was the first festival since Robert Redford, its founder and president, passed away last September. Redford was more than just the face of the festival. He served as an ambassador for independent film, organizing Sundance Labs to support emerging filmmakers and encourage them to take risks. Acclaimed filmmakers like Ryan Coogler and Chloé Zhao, both Best Director nominees this year, began their careers in the Sundance Lab. Additionally, this year would be the last time the festival was hosted in Park City. In 2027, the festival is moving to Boulder, Colorado, for a myriad of reasons, including greater tax incentives, expanded infrastructure and lower costs. Interestingly, Redford, who attended the University of Colorado, blessed the move before he passed away. Many of the people whom I spoke to told me how this year felt different. Redford’s absence and the looming Boulder relocation made them nostalgic for past trips to Park City.
Although my mom and I were excited to see the exclusive Park City screenings, we had just one problem: we didn’t have any tickets! The Sundance Institute releases tickets in batches, allowing Sundance members and other individuals to pay extra (sometimes thousands of dollars) for early screening access. My mom and I decided to take a different route: the waitlist. The waitlist was a maddening process that dolled out tickets with little rhyme or reason. Participants would register for an individual screening’s waitlist EXACTLY two hours before its start time.
Thirty seconds was too late. Waitlists would already be full. However, even getting a waitlist spot was no guarantee. Waitlist members had to show up at least thirty minutes before the listed time, hoping regular ticket holders didn’t show. Some movies might let in 100 people off the waitlist. Some might let in ten. Some might let in zero. It was a complete crapshoot, but that was part of the fun.
In the waitlist lines, I spoke with film lovers from all walks of life – college students, Sundance volunteers and visitors who had attended the festival since the 1980s. The diversity of moviegoers is unmatched, and hearing their stories while standing in the waitlist lines – all of us praying to get tickets – added to my enjoyment.
For those on the waitlist, the best chance of getting into a film was the morning screenings, since many people had stayed out late on Main Street the night before or were hitting the slopes at Deer Valley Ski Resort that morning. Thanks to a Reddit thread my mom found the night before, we learned that the Sundance app sometimes releases extra tickets at 4:30 a.m. for morning showings. Through this hack, we secured tickets to “Josephine” and headed over to the Yarrow Theatre for the 8:30 a.m. screening.
Although I saw five films during my time in Park City, “Josephine” was my favorite, and I am so grateful I saw it here because I would not have sought it out otherwise. The film follows Josephine (Mason Reeves), an eight-year-old girl who witnesses a brutal sexual assault in Golden Gate Park. After the incident, she acts out both in fear and rage, haunted by visions of the attacker. Her parents, Claire (Gemma Chan) and Damien (Channing Tatum), struggle with conflicting ideas of how to help. Damien, focused on toughness, enrolls her in self-defense classes and insists she should testify in court. Claire, on the other hand, attempts to shield Josephine from the real world’s harsh realities because of her young age. Josephine, caught in the middle of a lengthy court process, debates whether to face her traumatic experience head-on by testifying in a court case with an uncertain outcome.
Inspired by a similar childhood traumatic experience for the film’s director, Beth de Araújo, the film places the audience in the child’s perspective, feeling the trauma. It deals with an uncomfortable subject matter in a confrontational way and calls out how sexual assault affects younger generations. It also reveals the difficulties of parenting, especially when opinions differ. Both Tatum and Chan give great performances as concerned parents who don’t know what to do in an unthinkable situation. For Tatum, a top Hollywood star, this film stands in contrast to recent starring roles like “Roofman,” “Blink Twice” and “Fly Me to the Moon,” and showcases his range as an actor.
After the film, the stars came out for a quick Q&A with the audience. There, I learned Araújo met Reeves when handing out audition flyers in her childhood neighborhood. Tatum also explained his connection to the part, revealing that he saw much of his dad’s old-school parenting style that neglected childhood trauma and difficult topics in Damien’s character. I wasn’t the only one who connected with this film. It won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award and will likely secure a distribution deal in the coming days.
My Sundance experience was nothing short of spectacular. Not only did I see some great films, but I met other passionate film fans, many of whom were college students there on group trips. I plan to talk to Notre Dame’s FTT department to learn how we can create opportunities so Notre Dame students can participate in top film festivals like Sundance. With all the chaos in the entertainment industry, it was great to spend a weekend away from South Bend, enjoying some high-quality independent films in Park City.
