Aspen might boast prestigious artwork establishments, and the Engadine Valley would possibly tempt skiers with gallery stops between runs in St. Moritz — as a result of who doesn’t love slightly conceptual artwork by On Kawara with their après? However with regards to cinema, no alpine resort can maintain a candle to Utah’s Park Metropolis. Each January for the previous 4 many years, this quaint former mining city has grow to be the unlikely epicentre of the film world, drawing business insiders and movie aficionados alike to the Sundance Movie Competition.
Within the 1860s, the silver-rich mountains lured fortune seekers from around the globe, yielding US$400 million in silver and creating 23 millionaires — together with the daddy of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. In the present day, guests come seeking one thing far much less tangible than treasured metallic. Over time, Sundance has launched careers (simply ask Timothée Chalamet and Jennifer Lawrence), reshaped genres, and set the tone for impartial movie. Whether or not it’s the following breakout director or a documentary that sparks international conversations, Park Metropolis is the place the magic occurs — on and off the slopes. If solely Disneyland hadn’t claimed the tagline first.
And the person to thank for this refined pairing of cinema and snowboarding — one of many biggest duos since Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? Academy Award-winning actor Robert Redford, who as soon as, slightly refreshingly, declared, ‘I’m not into Oscars.’ Unfazed by the razzle-dazzle of present enterprise, Redford based Sundance with a healthful ambition: ‘An arts neighborhood, a leisure neighborhood, a neighborhood of people that recognize the great thing about nature and really feel the duty to protect it.’
Certain sufficient, rising bleary-eyed however enriched after a day of back-to-back screenings and panel discussions — to not point out the occasional occasion — the sight of Jupiter Peak, Park Metropolis’s highest at 3,042 metres, stays simply as arresting.
My inaugural journey to Park Metropolis was for Sundance 2023. After per week of wistfully eyeing the chairlifts gliding straight into city, I lastly caved — it was the proper excuse to strive snowboarding. A half-day group lesson with an Argentinian teacher whose assertiveness and enthusiasm ensured failure was not an choice left me stepping off the slopes of Park Metropolis Mountain Resort with a uncommon and satisfying sense of accomplishment. How usually, as adults, can we get to expertise the fun of mastering one thing totally new in only a few hours?
Now, in 2025, I used to be again for my second Park Metropolis repair. I had it on good authority that considered one of Primary Avenue’s hottest new culinary locations was Firewood, the place seasonal produce is cooked over a wooden fireplace in a heat, industrial setting. So I rushed to make a reservation earlier than Hollywood beat me to it — in the event that they hadn’t already. Fortune was in my favour, however not in the best way I had anticipated. The restaurant was closed for the week to host the Elvis Suite, the place the ever-wise American movie critic and broadcaster Elvis Mitchell would maintain intimate conversations with the likes of Olivia Colman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
On my first morning on the town, I discovered myself being serenaded by Cynthia Erivo, recent from her Oscar nomination (now I sound preoccupied with awards — Mr. Redford wouldn’t approve). Between her uncanny impersonations of Aretha Franklin and Walt Whitman-esque musings — ‘Nobody is only one factor’ — I didn’t miss out on Firewood’s fare altogether, due to the unfold of garbanzo halloumi salad, roasted cauliflower and quinoa, burrata caprese, steak sandwiches, and poke bowls.
Regardless of the critics say, this 12 months’s Sundance was a cinematic feast. Peter Hujar’s Day was the movie I didn’t know I wanted: 90 minutes of the photographer (performed by Ben Whishaw) — famend for his intimate portraits of New York’s queer creatives within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s — reciting the trivialities of his day, all captured by the delicate, sunset-drenched lens of director Ira Sachs. It was the proper second of escapism from this chaotic world.
Free Leonard Peltier, a documentary following the half-century effort to launch the Indigenous activist from jail, felt significantly pertinent after Joe Biden, in considered one of his remaining acts as president, commuted Peltier’s sentence only a week earlier than the movie’s premiere. And past its dramatic soundtrack and glamorous costumes, the brand new adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Lady (starring Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh) inspired audiences — who gave the movie a standing ovation — to rethink binary notions of gender. It was a very defiant message — and a welcome reduction for nonconforming people like yours actually — amid the brand new Trump administration’s insurance policies.
Pendry Park Metropolis
To make sure a watertight pageant schedule with out redundancies, you want some actions up your sleeve, and Primary Avenue, with its pioneer-style clapboard buildings, has loads to supply. I whiled away an hour curled up with James Clear’s Atomic Habits in Dolly’s Bookstore, scooped up a packet of lavender Earl Gray at Atticus Espresso & Tea, and perused the 14k gold buckles, bison cowboy boots, and customized felt hats at Burns, a Western clothes shop that’s been in the identical household since 1876.
No matter time of 12 months you go to, you should definitely get tickets to the Egyptian Theatre. It’s as a lot in regards to the constructing’s extravagant lotus leaves, scarabs, and hieroglyphics — designed in homage to the invention of King Tutankhamun’s tomb — as it’s about what’s on the display and stage.
Mr Smith and I stumbled throughout a very curious cupboard of curiosities at Trésor, stacked to the brim with precariously organized Ichthyosaur fossils and hand-carved mammoth tusks. When the phobia of shattering 185-million years of historical past with a single sneeze or careless swing of a bag grew to become an excessive amount of, we fled to our dinner reservation.
A queue had already shaped outdoors Yuki Yama, however we scored a number of the greatest seats in the home on the sushi bar, the place we had a front-row view of the artistry unfolding. Overwhelmed by the menu of recent fish flown in from around the globe, we surrendered to the specialists and let founder Kirk and Matt’s staff take the reins. They outdid themselves with a banquet of kimchi miso, kurodai, madai, and shima aji.
Washington Faculty Home
My remaining day in Park Metropolis arrived, and I nonetheless hadn’t rediscovered my ski legs within the place that hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics — prison. I might have rolled off the bed on the Pendry Park Metropolis and straight onto the slopes the place I had made my debut. However why not strive someplace new, I believed.
I made my method throughout city to Deer Valley. The resort might sound acquainted as the location of Gwyneth Paltrow’s notorious ski crash and subsequent trial. You understand the one — the place the actor-turned-lifestyle guru lamented to the jury that she had misplaced a ‘entire day of snowboarding’. In case you want a refresher, the trial resulted in a triumphant conclusion for Paltrow, who glided out of the courtroom, not chargeable for the collision with optometrist Terry Sanderson. ‘I want you properly,’ she informed him as he was left to pay $1 in damages — precisely as she had requested.
Utah’s powder is usually described because the ‘Best Snow on Earth,’ and I’m inclined to agree (not that I’ve a lot to match it to). I quickly acquired a style for it — actually — spending a lot of the morning face down within the stuff. Snowboarding, because it seems, is just not like driving a motorcycle. It took a medic, three guides, and a ski teacher repeating mantras — ‘press on the left massive toe to show proper, the proper massive toe to show left’ and ‘you wanna be goin’ throughout the mountain, not down it’ — earlier than I used to be lastly on my method. One among my biggest achievements was making it down the 4.85-mile Inexperienced Monster run, the longest within the state.
Mid-mountain, I made a pit cease at Sticky Wicket, a time capsule of a bar tucked into Silver Lake Lodge, its wood partitions decked in retro ski memorabilia. After the morning’s exertions, I opted for one thing basic: a Nashville fried rooster sandwich with parmesan fries and a sinfully giant glass of root beer.
On the drive to Salt Lake Metropolis airport, passing the imperious Mormon temples, I revisited my Park Metropolis guidelines. There was nonetheless a lot to discover — from a number of nights on the Washington Faculty Home lodge to dinner at Twisted Fern. Whenever you wish to return someplace, it helps to depart a number of issues undone. And with Sundance set to maneuver to a brand new house in 2027 (Boulder, Cincinnati, or Salt Lake Metropolis have made the shortlist), a visit devoted totally to Park Metropolis would possibly simply be on the playing cards.
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Liam Freeman is a British author, photographer and advisor whose work has been revealed within the Monetary Instances, The New York Instances and Vogue — the place they beforehand served as a senior options editor. With a ardour for immersive journey and a give attention to environmental and social points, Liam has reported on gorilla conservation in Rwanda, citizen-led restoration of Australia’s Nice Barrier Reef, and conventional textile manufacturing in West Africa.
