Patrons hit Sundance Film Festival's final shows

PARK CITY — Nearly all of the actors had fled the scene while some directors stayed behind to collect hardware for winning films. Gone, too, were most of the publicists and entourages that add to the sometimes frenetic energy of the Sundance Film Festival.

Still present at the festival were people who love to watch movies, including a lot of Utahns who still packed theaters to milk every last screening possible from the 118 features and 85 documentaries presented for the 2011 version of the annual event. Robert Redford, who makes certain to emphasize in press conferences each year that the event is all about films, must have been pleased — if he was still in town.

Those hungering for fine films had help from knowing who the winners were and having those films play for the last two days, including at the spacious Eccles Theater, where around 1,300 could squeeze into the auditorium. Saturday night featured Grand Jury dramatic winner "Like Crazy," a remarkably honest and sometimes gutting tale of first love and long-distance romance between a Los Angeles based grad (Anton Yelchin) and his London-dwelling girlfriend (Felicity Jones).

Director Drake Doremus left the celebration party at the awards ceremony and brought many of his crew along to participate in a Q&A with the very receptive audience afterwards. He admitted that the story was largely about his own experiences with young love and relationships that span continents. He suspected such experiences were pretty universal and had the sympathetic audience eating out of his hand when asked if he and his real-life girlfriend that the story was based on were still together.

"We are not together, but we will always be together in some way because of the deep bonding we had from those experiences."

His answer was greeted by a collective sigh and the film was purchased by Paramount Pictures for $4 million and will probably draw more sighs and tears across the country when it hits general release.

A local, jovial, self-described "biggest guy in the theater," in a Saturday night Tower screening of "My Idiot Brother," had managed to see 22 films to that point, despite working 40-hours as usual and with a couple more films likely to fall before the fest officially ended Sunday with the final screening showcasing "The Details."

A round of evening screenings were available for Park City patrons, including another full house expected at the Eccles, but this time for the audience award-winning drama "Circumstance."