‘It feels good to be back in-person’
The Sundance Film Festival met the moment by going virtual for the past two years because of the coronavirus pandemic. But on Thursday, there was a palpable sense of relief from the festival’s leadership team at being in-person again. Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente, director of programming Kim Yutani, senior programmer John Nein and incoming Sundance Film Festival director Eugene Hernandez gathered in Park City, Utah, to discuss what’s to come. Just outside, on a snowy Main Street, finishing touches were being put on storefronts and restaurants that sponsors have taken over for the week.
“It feels so good to be back in person,” Vicente said. “There’s nothing like the magic of being together in Park City.”
Yutani also announced the last-minute addition of Justice, a documentary from filmmaker Doug Liman about allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “It was a powerful documentary that we felt was important to add,” Yutani said. “We saw it, like, yesterday.”
WORLD PREMIERES
Eleven films have their world premieres Thursday night, including the documentary
Little Richard: I Am Everything and the Frankenstein-inspired psychological horror “birth/ rebirth,” about a morgue technician who reanimates a little girl. Also on Thursday, Shayda,
about an Iranian mother and her 6-year-old daughter who go to a women’s shelter in Australia, The Longest Goodbye, a documentary about a Nasa psychologist preparing Marsbound astronauts for social isolation, the Daisy Ridley film Sometimes I Think About Dying and
Kim’s Video, a documentary about a hunt for a lost video collection of 55,000 movies.
Programmers watched 16,000 films to determine this year’s slate of 111 films and say that there is something for everyone. Biographical documentaries, films about world issues and diasporic filmmaking are especially popular this year.
Nein said that he expects audiences to be buzzing about the performances of both known stars like Jonathan Majors, in Magazine Dreams, Cynthia Erivo, in Drift, and Eugenio Derbez in Radical and newcomers like Lío Mehiel in Mutt and Priya Kansara in Polite Society.
The Sundance Institute is also hosting a dinner Thursday night honouring filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, Ryan Coogler, Nikyatu Jusu and W. Kamau Bell. There will also be a fund-raising component to support the Institute’s work. Vicente said that it has been a challenging few years for the Institute, financially.
Sundance is not just a festival, after all. The non-profit institute, founded by Robert Redford in 1981, provides year-round support to emerging filmmakers with labs, fellowships and mentorship. The Sundance Film Festival runs through January 29.