Red Velvet Exhaustion

Sundance Film Festival 2025 streams through Park City with the blood‑red glow of a step‑and‑repeat prom, a barrel full of champagne‑faced Americans and international icons. The gatekeepers at the 211‑gate entrance hand out velvet‑banded passes like sacramental medals, while the real rendezvous is the rough asphalt of Main Street, where chauffeurs wrangle cars as if they are allegiance‑racing bees. The crowd—Arianna Huffington, Sofia Coppola, and a handful of lesser‑known indie actors—crush the sidewalk in an unadorned hierarchy that says more about who you know than your actual visual taste. Off‑schedule, the Kimball Art Center hosts a dry‑pan opening, a pallid affair painted with immaculate tables and pretentious toasts. Meanwhile, The Egyptian, the underground club that claims to have hosted every scandal in the city, remains a distant rumor, a silhouette between a plush white tent and the real, glittering spectacle of Sundance. Verdict: Avoid the Main Street crush.