But in an era when Sundance is rapidly metastasizing away from its time-cherished role as Hollywood’s unofficial launching pad for the crème de la crème of indie movie up and comers into a global proving ground for narrative storytelling in all screen styles, the Special Events section has evolved to include some of the fest’s most exciting programming.

This year, the section provides a showcase for longer-form narrative features scheduled to air on television, streaming services, and web video platforms. And according to fest organizers, they’re all efforts that don’t fit into any neat film festival categories but nonetheless manage to embody Sundance’s mission-statement veneration of story craft aimed at audiences outside the art house. “There’s such a wide range of styles that’s in the special events section,” says Sundance’s director of programming Trevor Groth. “It’s representative of the different kinds of artists we want to support in different mediums.”

Starz’s original anthology series The Girlfriend Experience, for one, embarks from a 2009 drama of the same name directed by Steven Soderbergh. It stars Riley Keough (Magic Mike) as a law student turned high-class New York call girl who provides clients a transactional relationship entailing more than sex. “The series is really smart,” says Groth. “It takes the notion of the film and expands it outward in really interesting ways that are really provocative and sexy.” (The first four episodes will premiere at Sundance.)

At the other end of the non-film spectrum, meanwhile, The Skinny(written, directed by, and starring Jessie Kahnweiler) follows a wannabe YouTube star as she attempts to reconcile her romantic, self-image and eating disorder issues. The movie will later stream on the website Refinery29. “Jessie could have made this as an independent film and we would’ve shown it,” Groth says. “But she decided to do it in this six part series. The voice of it is so powerful, strong and funny, it just fits naturally into everything else we’re doing. Jill Soloway is one of the producers. Transparent, we premiered at the festival too.”

Chelsea Handler makes her festival debut premiering Chelsea Does, a four-part Netflix docu-series following the acid-tongued talk show host as she tackles such topics as marriage, racism, new technology, and drugs. Given Handler’s hard-wired lack of political correctness, though, it would be easy to write her off as the most un-Sundance person attending the festival this year.

“Until she opens her mouth. And then she is Sundance,” points out the festival’s director John Cooper. “It’s always personal. But it’s a series where she takes on certain subjects. It’s basically documentaries that she’s made with her point of view and craziness and willingness to go there with people. It’s pretty entertaining.”

Representing the biggest time commitment of Sundance ’16, the festival will present all 7.5 hours of O.J.: Made in America — chronicling the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson — as a one-day event with an intermission for lunch. “ESPN is going to broadcast it over five nights. But it watches like a film,” Groth says. “The filmmaker wanted to talk about it like that too — the series’ arc and how it unfolds. It iscinematic. It’s so smart and well conceived, it’s going to be a great experience for people to watch it like a film.”

The Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 21 to 31 in Park City, Utah. Scroll below for a full listing of Special Events.