Wrapping it up: Back-to-school documentaries, meeting an ex-missionary, and weighing the award winners

It was a weird week, but in the end, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival came as close to being a real film festival as one could experience while staying at home.

I saw a lot of movies — 26 in all, more than a third of the 73 features in the festival’s slate — and listened to a good many live Q&A sessions. I sat in on a panel discussion, and I attended the awards night ceremony and the party after.

The only difference is that the party was accessible via a VR headset, and I had to buy my own alcohol. (In the spirit of the proceedings, I tried one of the festival sponsors — and had my first-ever can of White Claw.)

Here’s are the stories I wrote for The Salt Lake Tribune during the festival:

• I talked to Gregory Barnes about how he channeled his experiences as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into his short film “The Touch of the Master’s Hand.” (The short won the Jury Prize for U.S. Fiction.)

• Three looks inside American high schools were in the U.S. Documentary competition — each from fascinating and unique perspectives.

• Festival organizers greeted their online audience with music, a roll call of “satellite screens” from around the country, and the words of Sundance’s founder, Robert Redford.

• The big winners on Awards Night included the deaf-family comedy-drama “CODA” and the concert documentary “Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”

• I picked some of my award winners, for categories the Sundance juries never thought of.

• Sundance boasted that it had more viewings of its 2021 screenings than ticket buyers at its 2020 festival. (Sundance estimated that the number was almost three times the previous year’s figures, because of a multiplier — an estimate that for every “viewing,” about two people were actually watching. Since that was an estimate, I didn’t include it in my story. The figures were impressive enough without it.)

• And let’s not forget the Slamdance Film Festival, which ran online in February instead of alongside Sundance in Park City. Here’s a list of its award winners.