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Sundance Film Festival is always overwhelming, and this year was no exception. How do you weed through a film catalogue that reads like Encyclopedia Britanica? One way to narrow it down is to focus on films adapted from books. There were at least five this year: Twelve (Author: Nick McDonnell); Winter’s Bone (Author: Daniel Woodrell); The Extra Man (Author: Jonathan Ames); The Taqwacores (Author: Michael Muhammad Knight) and The Romantics (Author: Galt Niederhoffer.) What a thrill it must be for these authors – to see a filmmaker take on the monumental task of bringing their story to the screen.

The year before I went to grad school at Columbia, I spent a winter working for Sundance as their press liaison by day and volunteer driver for the Sundance Director’s and Producers’ Labs by night. From driving Oliver Stone in from the airport to suggesting screenings to Roger Ansen and Pauline Kael, it was a heady and inspiring time. When I look at this photo Shaun took last week, it brings it all back – along with his tales of near-all-night parties and tagging along with Sundance folks to screenings. Long live the spirit of indie adventure – in films and in the books that inspire them.