As the film world descends on Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival, one movie has begun to garner a lot of attention, and many Savannah film workers are familar with it.

“The Glorias” premiered last weekend at the film festival and has garnered good reviews out of the gate. “The Glorias” tells the life story of Gloria Steinem and features Academy Award winner Julianne Moore as the feminist icon. Alicia Vikander portrays a younger version of Steinem, with Bette Midler and Janelle Monae rounding out the cast.

“Variety” said the movie “gets into the nitty-gritty of the backroom politics of the feminist movement, and on that level it’s a richly gratifying movie,” adding that Moore’s “performance is etched with a twinkle of hard-won knowingness, especially when she’s delivering vintage Steinem-isms.”

“The Hollywood Reporter” was a fan of the film’s portrayal of Steinem, saying “the focus on Gloria’s loving friendships and sharing of knowledge with these women makes the film as much about Steinem’s humanity as her politics.” The industry website added that the film “certainly can’t be faulted for lack of ambition.”

“Indiewire” found the inventive storytelling structure helped to “match subject with storyteller,” going on to say that “despite a near-two-and-a-half-hour running time, moments like that prove how much more of Steinem there still is to show and appreciate, and how (director Julie) Taymor has cleverly hacked through a rich world and life to pull out enough profound truths to remind us all of both her — and Steinem’s — unstoppable voice.”

The production made Savannah its home through late 2018 and into early 2019. Rachel Kerby, then a senior at the Savannah College of Art and Design, worked on the project, telling the Savannah Morning News in February that ”[the design details] transport you to a time period and accuracy matters. It creates the authenticity of the world and is very important in transporting [the audience] and in storytelling.”

Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell also made a stop in Savannah to work on the film, telling the Savannah Morning News that “the adult Gloria, she gets a style [and] starts developing a look, starting with Alicia and transitioning into Julianne. Because the actors are so completely different, as well, they sort of wear it different, but it all adds up to the same thing — the essence of Gloria.”

While in town, Julianne Moore endured herself to the area, making friends with a group of bikers in Rincon, which she detailed in an Instagram post last January while Alicia Vikander used the backdrop of Savannah for a cover shoot with Harper’s Bazaar, saying about her role that “I was just overwhelmed by what Gloria has done in her lifetime and how much difficulty she must have had growing up in that time. I’m so curious what made her have the strength to confront what was so unbalanced in our society.”

“The Glorias” is seeking distribution at the Sundance Film Festival, so no release date has been announced.

Read the original article on the Augusta Chronicle, here.