The Sundance film festival wrapped up this past weekend in Park City, Utah. Although the films that premiered won’t make their way to London for another few months, the independent festival is known to be a good gauge of what’s going to be big this year. With Sundance being the first official festival of the new year, many of its selections make their way in to other notable festivals throughout the year.

Awards this year went to Mark Ruffalo for his directorial debut of Sympathy for Delicious that took home the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize and David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom which took home the Dramatic World Cinema Jury. Michael Winterbottom of the UK’s Revolution Films was one of the few surprises of the festival, picking up a distribution deal with IFC for about £1 Million with international rights still unclaimed.

Another directorial debut that is likely to make some buzz with a lot of support from the Sundance Institute is Adrian Grenier's Teenage Paparazzo. The documentary is about Entourage star Grenier delving into the other side of ‘papping’ with the help of a 13-year-old boy. Grenier told an audience at Sundance that he was hoping to show happy-snap teenager Austin Visschedyk how the paparazzi are portrayed and how contrived the phenomenon is from both ends of the camera.

Last year's Sundance successes include Precious, which is currently screening in the UK and received nominations for BAFTA and Golden Globe awards in the US so far. Whilst this year’s festival screened 113 films in just over a week, selected from more than 3000 submissions.