![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1769932149_379_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\np]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> <\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Sundance felt marked by great uncertainty. Personally, I was never quite sure how to feel, as the many unknowns of next year\u2019s move to Boulder meant that it was unclear how much this year was supposed to feel like the end of something or the start of a new beginning. I didn\u2019t know just how mournful to be, though, as the festival marched along, it became clear there was a space for nostalgic reflections.<\/p>\n
The first movie I ever saw at Sundance was Andrew Fleming\u2019s comedy \u201cHamlet 2\u201d in the Library Center Theatre. Which means it was 2008 and I was then an intrepid freelancer who talked my way into sleeping on a recliner at a condo rented by The Times until staffers trickled out and I eventually had the place to myself because of the vagaries of an extended rental agreement. Which is how I found myself, entirely unexpectedly, in a room interviewing all of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were in town for their tour documentary \u201cCSNY\/D\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sense of surprise and discovery \u2014 and in-person interactions that likely wouldn\u2019t happen anywhere else \u2014 are what have brought me back to the festival every year I could manage since. It\u2019s exactly why I have been a huge fan of the festival\u2019s NEXT section, made up of films that don\u2019t quite fit elsewhere in the program. A standout this year was Georgia Bernstein\u2019s debut feature, \u201cNight Nurse,\u201d<\/b> a film of assured poise about a young woman (a compelling Cemre Paskoy) who takes a job at a retirement home only to find herself drawn into a series of phone scams, erotic role play and psychosexual transference with one the clients. Recommending the film to colleagues feels a little like an HR violation, but the kinky undercurrents and unsettling emotions are worth it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cemre Paksoy and Bruce McKenzie in the movie \u201cNight Nurse.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Lidia Nikonova \/ Sundance Institute)<\/p>\n
Many conversations around the festival seemed to firmly center on \u201cThe Invite\u201d and \u201cJosephine,\u201d but another film people consistently brought up was \u201cWicker.\u201d<\/b> Written and directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, adapting a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, the film takes place in an unspecified time and place: a sort of medieval-ish middle European village of the mind, in which an unmarried woman (Olivia Colman) asks a local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. That he comes out looking like Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd sets the whole town into a tizzy. Nimble and inventive, with convincing special effects work, the film is a charming parable that continually finds ways to reset itself.<\/p>\n
It is unclear just how planned it was, but there could have been no better film than \u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York\u201d<\/b> to be the final fiction feature to debut in the Eccles Theatre, one of the festival\u2019s most storied venues. Character actor Noah Segan\u2019s directorial debut, the movie is a warmly elegiac portrait of the city and the pain of recognizing when your time has passed. Led by a quietly commanding lead performance by John Turturro, the film also features Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito in supporting roles.<\/p>\n
As the trio took the stage with Segan and other cast members after the film, it quickly became apparent how special it was to have those three actors there in that moment. Buscemi rattled off a quietly astounding number of films he has appeared in with \u201cNew York\u201d in the title \u2014 \u201cNew York Stories,\u201d \u201cSlaves of New York,\u201d \u201cKing of New York\u201d \u2014 while Turturro spoke movingly about his relationship with Robert Redford, whose absence hung heavy over the entire festival.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1769932149_831_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
John Turturro in the move \u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
(MRC II Distribution Co. L.P. \/ Sundance Institute)<\/p>\n
As Esposito began talking about what Sundance has meant to him over the years, his words took on a fierce momentum. He recalled when he first came to the festival in the \u201990s, he was \u201cecstatic because it gave a voice to those who didn\u2019t have a voice. \u2026 We didn\u2019t come to sell a film to a big studio. We came to share our small movie with human beings that could really see themselves in a mirror on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of Redford, he added, \u201cHis vision is priceless. It\u2019s the gem that we all hope for. It\u2019s the juice of why we live. It\u2019s the connection of why this movie works. It\u2019s the love of what we do. This, to me, will stick with me for the rest of my life. My interactions with this man who started this festival will always be a beacon of light in my creative process.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a beautiful and inspiring way to leave that theater for the last time and, in turn, leave Park City behind for a future that, while full of unknowns, will for now also hold the promise of new discoveries to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> This year\u2019s Sundance felt marked by great uncertainty. Personally, I was never quite sure how to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[1380,18,117,153136,153130,153132,27934,153134,153133,11341,19,17,33556,327,968,83796,153135,153131,16998,1093],"class_list":{"0":"post-314630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-comedy","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-erotic-role","12":"tag-favorite-film","13":"tag-favorite-movie","14":"tag-festival","15":"tag-film-critic","16":"tag-good-place","17":"tag-holiday","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-moment","21":"tag-movies","22":"tag-new-york","23":"tag-next-year","24":"tag-other-theater","25":"tag-park-city","26":"tag-sundance","27":"tag-time"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115994280936679443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}