Sundance to Sarajevo is a great bit of journalism at film festivals around the world. I had no idea there were so many, nor that each festival has its own distinctive character. Kenneth Turan was the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR, and he attended many, many festivals over several decades. His perspective is especially insightful because he was working as a critic in the years that many of the now-dominant festivals were just starting, so he saw them from the beginning. I appreciated that his writing about each festival demonstrates a fond affection for each place and the people involved. In his career as a critic and traveler, he didn’t become jaded or numb to the wonder of filmgoing.

I was reading this in preparation for Sundance this year, but I couldn’t put the book down. I enjoyed learning about every festival Turan features—including a few that I’d love to visit someday.