PARK CITY, Utah — When the writer-director Benh Zeitlin was unexpectedly thrust into the middle of the Oscar melee in 2012 with his debut feature, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” it was a surreal, discomforting experience filled with stiff tuxedos and awkward small talk — light years away from his ragtag existence in New Orleans, where he makes lyrical, atmospheric movies with his friends.

Zeitlin was soothed somewhat by the people he met on the trail: a sit-down with Daniel Day-Lewis, a kind word from Sally Field, an interaction with Martin Scorsese, who was struggling at the time with his edit of “Wolf of Wall Street.”

“It was cool to see someone that legendary be just as stressed as me when I was cutting ‘Beasts,’” said Zeitlin, a Hollywood outsider who before his Oscar run had only visited Los Angeles once in his life.

Eight years later, this one-time Oscar wunderkind finally popped back up at this year’s Sundance Film Festival with his sophomore effort, “Wendy,” a grass-roots “Peter Pan” seen through the eyes of a liberated, adventurous Wendy Darling. Where had he been?