Sundance at 40: 2014 Awards Night
Picturing a night when Sundance was just 30.
A lot has changed, including jobs and careers, since filing this dispatch in 2014. Sundance 2024 is in Utah January 18-28, with a shorter window, January 24-28, for virtual reviewers.
Middle of the week, familiar faces aren’t recurring so often, Sundance theaters are mostly full, but not completely. But the traffic. The traffic never stops. Sundance 2014 was the first festival I’ve been to where what would once have been a workable schedule of screenings went to hell repeatedly because of traffic standstills all around Park City. The good thing about that is three or four films I would never have seen, but saw because they were the next option, half an hour forward, an hour forward, and they were good. I Pollyanna’ed that idea day and night long. Sundance: wherever you are, you’re where you were meant to be. And here are some people who stayed through to the sunshiny end, until Saturday’s awards ceremony. Screens are a theme. [For more from the night, including Nick Offerman’s manly full-length fur coat, go here.]
Last movie before the awards ceremony on a supershuttle across the city. You have been warned.
A picture of a picture of a backdrop that will be torn down in a few hours.
Mr. Nick Offerman officiated with the help of his “Legal Property,” Megan Mullaly. They sang a forgettable ditty about how movies get to Sundance, called “Pussy and Weed.”
Guides wave placards to facilitate seating in the pre-show cocktail crush.
Beards. Beards examining beards. Many beards.
William H. Macy will remember this until the last of his memory card.
Lovely decor all around. But what were these things for?
Producer Vanessa Gazy accepts an award long with director Matthew Lessner for the short, Chapel Perilous.
Second-time Sundance winner Matthew Lessner.
Festival stalwart Jim Fouratt, seen without his Flip video camera.
Perennial festival attendees Bob Hawk and John Bernstein.
Sarah Eaton smiles.
Nick Fraser, likely not talking about The Act of Killing.
A brace of Zellners.
Everyone loves Leonard Maltin.
Chris Holmes continues a festival of smooth and dancefloor-filling Sundance DJ gigs.
Juror Dana Stevens.
Producer-cinematographer Orwa Nyrabia, representing Return to Homs.
Damien Chazelle, winner of the Grand Jury Prize, dramatic, between his Whiplash protagonists, Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons.
IndieWIRE’s indefatigable Eric Kohn.
Sunday afternoon…
After the awards were finished, volunteers swooped in to clear the room for a dance floor. This is efficiency. For seventy-eight photos from that night ten years ago, go here.