美国国家公共电台 NPR--Sundance returns in-person to Park City — with more submissions than ever

Sundance returns in-person to Park City — with more submissions¹ than ever

Transcript²

Filmmakers and film lovers are gathering³ in Park City, Utah, Thursday, for two weeks of premieres, screenings, panels and parties. The Sundance Film Festival is back, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it from operating as it has since 1981.

"We're just so excited to be back in person," says filmmaker Joana Vicente, the CEO of the Sundance Institute. She says being mostly online the past few years did give access to a bigger audience, but "seeing films together, having conversations, meeting the talent and doing the Q&A's and listening to new insights into into the films ... [is] just such a unique, incredible experience."

The festival opens with the world premiere of Little Richard: I am Everything. The film documents the complex rock and roll icon⁴ who dealt with the racial and sexual tensions of his era.

Director Lisa Cortés does a deep dive into American pop music in Little Richard: I Am Everything.

Sundance Institute

There are other documentaries about well-known figures: one, about actress Brooke Shields, is called Pretty Baby. Another takes a look at actor Michael J. Fox. Another, musician Willie Nelson, and still another, children's author Judy Blume.

This year, nearly half the films at the festival were made by first-time filmmakers. The programming team sifted⁵ through more than 16,000 submissions — the most Sundance has ever had. The result is a record number of works by indigenous⁶ filmmakers (including Erica Tremblay, with her film Fancy Dance), and 28 countries are represented as well.

"Artists are exploring how we're coming out of the pandemic, how we're reassessing our place in the world," says Kim Yutani, the festival's director of programming. She notes that many of the narrative⁷ films have characters who are complicated, not all of them likeable.

"We saw a lot of anti-heroes this year," she says, "a lot of people wrestling with their identities."

She points to the character Jonathan Majors plays, a body builder in the drama Magazine Dreams, and Jennifer Connelly, who plays a former child actor in Alice Englert's dark comedy Bad Behaviour.

Yutani says she's also excited by the performances of Daisy Ridley, who plays a morbid⁸ introvert⁹ in a film called Sometimes I Think About Dying, and of Emilia Jones, who was a star in the 2021 Sundance hit CODA. Jones is in two films this year: Cat Person, based on Kristen Roupenian's short story in The New Yorker, and Fairyland, in which she plays the daughter of a gay man in San Francisco in the 1970s and '80s.

Opening night of the festival also includes the premiere of Radical¹⁰, starring Eugenio Derbez as a sixth grade teacher in Matamoros, Mexico. Another standout comes from this side of the border, the documentary Going Varsity in Mariachi, which spotlights¹¹ the competitive world of high school Mariachi bands in Texas.

Going Varsity in Mariachi showcases high school mariachi competitions in Texas.

Osmosis Films

And if that's not enough, Sundance is bringing several of its hits from the pandemic that went on to win Oscars: CODA and Summer of Soul will be shown on the big screen, with audiences eager to be back.

1 submissions   

n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据

参考例句：

• The deadline for submissions to the competition will be Easter 1994. 递交参赛申请的截止时间为1994年的复活节。 来自辞典例句
• Section 556(d) allows the agency to substitute written submissions for oral direct testimony in rulemaking. 第五百五十六条第（四）款准允行政机关在规则制定中用书面提交材料替代口头的直接证言。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

4 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

5 sifted   

v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审

参考例句：

• She sifted through her papers to find the lost letter. 她仔细在文件中寻找那封丢失的信。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter. 她用蓟筛筛蓟。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

7 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

8 morbid   

adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的

参考例句：

• Some people have a morbid fascination with crime.一些人对犯罪有一种病态的痴迷。
• It's morbid to dwell on cemeteries and such like.不厌其烦地谈论墓地以及诸如此类的事是一种病态。

9 introvert   

n.性格内向的人

参考例句：

• You are very much an introvert.你是一位地道的内向性格者。
• The same conversation that energizes the extravert also drains the introvert.同样的交谈能让外向者荣光焕发，却让内向者精神颓靡。

10 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

11 spotlights   

n.聚光灯（的光）( spotlight的名词复数 )；公众注意的中心v.聚光照明( spotlight的第三人称单数 )；使公众注意，使突出醒目

参考例句：

• The room was lit by spotlights. 房间被聚光灯照亮。
• The dazzle of the spotlights made him ill at ease. 聚光灯的耀眼强光使他局促不安。 来自辞典例句