Human Factors.
Klemens Hufnagl/Sundance Institute
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was like no other. Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, the usual red-carpet premieres were replaced by at-home streaming supplemented by screenings at a handful of small venues and drive-ins around the country.
That’s not the way most attendees preferred to experience the movies, of course. But the festival’s 2021 selections were still true to the spirit of Sundance, which fosters independent cinema and innovative voices: They served up exciting stories from around the world, mostly of the kind that Hollywood often skips over. The fiction films that made it to Sundance in this weird year ranged from thrillers to dramas to heartwarming comedies; soon, many of them will be (or already have been) bought by distributors and streaming services.