G. Allen Johnson January 27, 2021Updated: January 28, 2021, 6:21 pm
Anne Lai, a former Sundance Institute executive, became the executive director of SFFilm on March 11. Photo: Pamela Gentile, SFFilm
Last year, Anne Lai left Utah’s Sundance Institute and moved to the Bay Area to lead SFFilm. She never dreamed that when the Sundance Film Festival returned on Thursday, Jan. 28, it would be screening films near her new home in San Mateo and not in its base in Park City, Utah.
That’s because the first major film festival of 2021 is mostly virtual, with select in-person events happening around the country, including drive-in screenings at Fort Mason Flix on the San Francisco waterfront.