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Among the pandemic’s many side effects, it created a unique capacity to force even the most august institutions to experience identity crises and growing pains. And in the film industry, perhaps no organization has felt this syndrome more acutely than the Sundance Institute.

“We have to look back at how do we sustain Sundance, for the future,” Michelle Satter, director of Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, told me. “We’re in a moment of stepping back and making tough decisions. You have to prioritize, and build back.”

After longtime festival director John Cooper left in 2020, Sundance veteran Tabitha Jackson took over; she stepped down June 7 and the festival now seeks a new leader. Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam left in 2021; Joana Vicente, who helped guide the Toronto International Film Festival during the pandemic, is now tasked with putting Sundance on its feet. Two years of a virtual Sundance...

Short of the DayHang on to your sanity.

Literally, the word “lachrymology” means “the study of crying.” Philosophically, it describes the belief that spiritual advancement is only possible through pain, both of the physical and emotional varieties.

While The Lachrymist from writer-director Matthew Gowan doesn’t confront this philosophy head on, it is certainly an emotional undercurrent of this taut, chilling, deviously confounding tale of psychological terror.

The plot is hauntingly simple: Savitri (Navi Rawat, Numb3rs, The O.C.) checks into a hotel room with her husband Byron (James Harvey Ward, True Blood, Low Winter Sun). At one point, she leaves the room, but when she tries to make her way back to it, somehow she can’t seem to find it. She asks the staff to help her, but they can’t because she’s not a registered guest of the hotel. Furthermore, they claim to have never seen her, and...