Weird, Wild Festival Happenings – The Hollywood Reporter

The Sundance Film Festival made a triumphant in-person return to Park City after being kept online for the past two years due to the pandemic. In the meantime, some attendees seem to have misplaced their festival manners.

Example: At the midnight screening of Laura Moss’s horror movie Birth/rebirth – a distorted look at the extremes of motherhood – a male guest brought a full rack of barbeque ribs from the Fresh Market next door and dug into them (using a fork and knife, bizarrely), unfazed by the churning of the stomach, bloody birth scenes on screen. (No word on whether he could keep them down for the duration.)

Aside from the ribs, the vibes on the ground here are undeniably festive with festival officials and filmmakers expressing their delight from the Park City stages at the sight of hordes of moviegoers packed into theaters across the city. But if you switch on a Sundancer between showings, you’re likely to hear tales of awkwardness and woe.

Of the former, W. Kamau Bell joked that he would “apologise to the elderly white gentleman” who approached him at the Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance kickoff event to congratulate him on the Oscar-winning documentary. Summer of the soul. He didn’t take the chance to correct him and give credit to Questlove or introduce himself as one of the night’s four radiant honorees. But what he said from the stage was this: “I’m sure Questlove would be excited to work with you.”

Traffic is always a problem in Park City, but this year backups and delays have been a nightmare in some cases. One publicist reported that she had to miss the premiere of her film because there was no room on one of the free transit buses and because multiple ridesharing services failed to show up or drivers kept circling for more than 30 minutes (a common headache reported by multiple sources). Another reveler reported giving up on a UTA cocktail party because the shuttle situation was such a mess due to traffic.

Friday night’s world premiere Magazine Dreams, with a brutal twist from Jonathan Majors as a bodybuilder with superstar dreams whose life spirals out of control, started 45 minutes late due to traffic and congestion at festivals. Badge and ticket holders also had to wait despite an empty theater as the kinks of the party were still relatively tightly rolled up at the start of the weekend.

It doesn’t help: On Friday night, an accident on the ever-busy roundabout onto Deer Valley Drive involving a horse trailer and a pick-up truck, wrecked the latter and brought traffic to a standstill for some time.

Human traffic has also been a problem. Standing in front of a packed room on a freezing Saturday evening, an insider of the party told me The Hollywood Reporter that they’ve seen bizarre behavior like people just “forgetting how to cross the street,” adding that social manners and cues are rusty. It’s also common to see pushy people cutting lines, yelling from the back of buses (“Is this bus going to Prospector Square?!”) or walking in front of traffic on Main Street without looking in either direction.

An irritated commuter looked like he had had enough. On a crowded (and slow) bus returning from the Eccles premiere of the Brooke Shields documentary Handsome babya man took out a stainless steel flask filled with liquor and downed it in one gulp.

Speaking of traffic, the delays and congestion can be seen as a positive sign that Sundance is back and more popular than ever, as there are simply thousands of festival-goers back on the ground this year, with party lists maxed out and RSVP inboxes overwhelming. A source reported an overwhelmed waiting list to even stop by the South Asian Lodge on Woodside Avenue, one of several cultural houses posted this year that have been popular attractions.

A slippery walk down Main Street shows venues and parties reaching capacity after the premiere with lines meandering up and down the block. THR witnessed two hot stars being turned away from such a popular venue as the party scene went into overdrive. “How can we get to Tao?” asked two other enthusiastic revelers on the same night that venue re-emerged as the go-to late-night hang thanks to performances by the likes of Diplo and DJ Pee Wee (alter ego of Anderson .Paak).

Tiffany Haddish even jumped on stage and performed for the VIP audience while sipping Casamigos Tequila, and THR learns that the file she sent to DJ Mel DeBarge crashed his computer, so the stand-up comedian had to fill his time telling jokes and apparently it was a hit. Other attendees included Phoebe Dynevor, Jordan first husband, Charlie Hall, Adam Lambert, Alexander Skarsgard, Cody Fern, Jack McBrayer, Logan BrowningNicholas Braun, Sebastian de Souza, Tessa Thompson and Zoey Deutch.

Then there was the case of the “medical incident” at the Egyptian Theater on Saturday night during the world premiere of Eddie Alcazar’s Divinity. THR confirmed that an ambulance was on scene, but despite early rumours… deadline reported that a woman went into labor during the screening and was rushed to a local hospital – it was not as serious as it initially appeared.

“The individual was treated and acquitted,” says a representative of the film THR. “Nobody went into labor. And the movie hasn’t stopped.”

According to the outlet, a local law enforcement official apparently blamed the false birth story on “wires [getting] crossed the walkie-talkies what really happened. THR followed up by the Park City Police Department, but heard nothing more at the time of writing. Again, perhaps coincidentally, a guest taking in the movie tweeted that it was “a total mindfuck,” and that didn’t pertain to Alcazar, who showed up to introduce his film wearing a terrifying, wrinkled monster mask.

On the same night, across town at the Ray Theater, Alexander Skarsgard appeared on the red carpet ahead of the premiere of his film infinity pool wearing a black leather dog collar with a long leash. That was tame compared to what was seen on screen thanks to shock author Brandon Cronenberg, son of body horror expert David Cronenberg.

“This film contains graphic violence and gore, graphic sexual content and other subject matter that may be offensive to some viewers,” the festival’s official warning read. They weren’t kidding: infinity pool features all of the above, including a scene with a close-up of what is supposed to be the erect penis of Skarsgard’s character getting a hand job complete with ejaculation. (A highlight was Jordan Firstman’s graphic scenes in Sebastian Silva’s intimate and savage Rotting in the Sun, a movie featuring multiple erect penises, one of which belongs to the influencer, who gets and gets oral sex.)

Perhaps more shocking was the sight of a man without a coat waiting outside the Eccles on Monday night for a late night screening. When asked by a Sundance volunteer why he wasn’t wearing a jacket on a night when the temperature dropped to a low of (a very frigid) 9 degrees, the 20-year-old gentleman gave a shocking answer: “I don’t have one. I’m from Cali and we don’t have weather like that there.’

Sundance is indeed back and a lot of weird, wild memories have been made.

With reporting by Borys Kit and Mia Galuppo

A version of this story first appeared in the January 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.