Insider's Diary: Sundance Film Festival:Delays, Conversations, and a Very Sundance Premiere

It’s 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 25, and I’m back in my hotel room after travel day and my first official day at Sundance Film Festival. Like any proper festival kickoff, it began with an LAX delay, likely a familiar rite of passage before landing in Park City.

Once on the ground, my first stop was Variety and Audible’s Conversation & Cocktails, where the real Sundance magic kicked in: standing in line and immediately making friends. Shyree, a casting director with a deep love for music and musicians, became my unofficial guide for the evening, whose advice I will now carry with me for the rest of the festival: if you see a vegetable, eat it.

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Watch Bailey's Sundance Film Festival Day One Recap

Inside, I connected with folks from a nonprofit doing powerful work inside prison systems, bringing actors and directors into facilities to talk filmmaking, and in some cases, creating real casting opportunities for inmates. It was one of those reminders that Sundance isn’t just about premieres; it’s about purpose.

I also met Zak, a London-based journalist working at the intersection of fashion and media, experiencing Sundance for the first time. We compared notes on festivals (Cannes and Venice: elite; Berlin: controversial), swapped Instagrams, and then Shyree kindly pointed me toward the bus so I could make my first screening.

That screening was the world premiere of The Gallerist, directed by Cathy Yan and starring Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charli XCX, and Zach Galifianakis, with music supervision by Linda Cohen. The film was bizarre, funny, and outrageous, a darkly comic exploration of what happens when a murder takes place inside an art gallery…and everyone decides it’s art.

After that, I hustled back to the hotel before my phone died (lesson learned). Actually, lessons plural: dress warmer than you think you need to, carry backup chargers, and always eat the vegetable.