Welcome to Utah, home of the three S’s: snow, smog, and the Sundance Film Festival.
Given what Utah is infamous for — our propensity towards all things Jell-O, spawning the Osmonds, our truly foul air quality — we’re lucky we’ve got Sundance to even things out. Not everyone has a world-class film festival right in their own backyard (literally so if you live in Park City). Every year, for just a little more than a week, the gods of the film world descend upon us mortals, and we’d be horribly amiss not to get up there to soak it all up — whether it’s to catch some films, check out the scene, or just to “star gaze.” When you combine the celebration of art with the intrinsic beauty of the Wasatch Mountains, that’s about as good as it gets.
That’s why we sent arts editor Frances Moody and managing editor-turned-Sundance-correspondent Niki Harris up to the hills to cover the festivities. In this special Sundance issue, we’ve got reviews of a few of our top picks from this year that you should watch out for come awards season next year. News editor/budding food writer Anna Drysdale has a quick and easy recipe for a classic silver screen snack, and arts reporter Ana Bentz writes on the Park City Music Café for a change of pace. While the festival wraps up the day after tomorrow, we hope this fleeting glimpse of Sundance will inspire those of you who haven’t checked out this local treasure to do so, be it tomorrow or next year. And for those of you who have already caught the Sundance bug, this one’s for you.