Just over a year ago, the 2020 edition of the Sundance Film Festival launched in the snow-capped mountains of Park City, Utah, as it has every year since its founding in 1978. One of the most significant American film festivals commenced only three days after the first documented case of COVID-19 and concluded only three days after the declaration of a public-health emergency in the United States.

The year since has been filled with tremendous loss and crippling struggle. It has been an extended time of isolation, in which community events like film festivals have had to reinvent themselves in many ways. You may even have found solace or escape in some of the films from the 2020 edition that were released this year — like Palm Springs, The 40-Year-Old Version, or Sylvie’s Love, all of which found homes on popular streaming sites.

A year into the pandemic, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival had to change the way it does things. Hordes of industry insiders and independent filmmakers descending on Park City bustling from cramped and crowded theater to cramped and crowded theater is untenable. This year, Sundance has reimagined its festival and proposed a hybrid offering between satellite screenings — advertised as “Seattle to San Juan” — and virtual screenings. (Satellite screenings in Miami had to be scrapped amid rising coronavirus cases.)