A brief history of Sundance and international film festivals

My options at the movies this week include a 1980s Dublin-set rock musical, a dark comedy that hinges on a lap dog, a thriller involving the moon landing conspiracy, a Werner Herzog doc about the internet’s profound mark on our lives, and dozens of other offbeat films, TV shows, documentaries, and visual experiments. I’m speaking about the Sundance Film Festival, but the variety of genre and voices applies to the dozens of annual film festivals across the globe. Alongside the advent of digital filmmaking, there are more film festivals than ever featuring more films by a wider variety of people. And digital streaming has helped niche films find their audience.

To prepare me for my first Sundance and provide some context for film fests, I invited Verge Entertainment Editor Emily Yoshida onto the show. We talk about the role technology plays in film festivals, including the increasing prominence of virtual reality.