Sarah Runyan

My time at UC Berkeley has been a collection of miniscule moments memorialized in my mind like artifacts in a museum. What I have experienced certainly has not been banal; yet, my mind is enraptured by the beauty of the blanks between events that have altered the course of my life. 

Returning to its snowy Utah milieu after spending two years online, the 2023 Sundance Film Festival amplified an array of stories from underrepresented voices.

“I just remember it was very meaningful for me at that age to be able to see myself reflected on-screen,” Laurel Parmet said in an interview with The Daily Californian after “The Starling Girl,” her feature directorial debut, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “And it made me feel like I want to do that for people.”

This year, The Daily Californian’s arts reporters Maya Thompson, Sarah Runyan and Asha Pruitt traveled to Park City, Utah to view the festival’s prestigious lineup on the big screen. Here’s what they watched.

For Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, there is no better feeling than briefly residing in a different universe — especially the lavish, unruly Hollywood in Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.”

Infused with imaginative splendor, San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” is a holiday season staple.

In-your-face nostalgia and novelty interlaced into ingenuity across film, music and television, crafting some of the most perceptive artistic works to date — simply put, art in 2022 was everything everywhere all at once.

Read The Daily Californian's picks for the best of music in 2022.

Read The Daily Californian's picks for the best of television in 2022.

Read The Daily Californian's picks for the best of film in 2022.