Sundance Film Festival unveils virtual slate
Organizers unveiled a robust lineup for the festival, which will be largely virtual due to the pandemic.
NEW YORK » A Questlove-directed documentary about the other major music event of the summer of 1969 and documentaries about the creators of “Sesame Street” and the coronavirus pandemic in China are among the 72 feature films debuting at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Organizers on Tuesday unveiled a robust and diverse slate for the festival, which will be largely virtual due to the pandemic.
The festival will kick off on Jan. 28 with the premieres of Nanfu Wang’s documentary about propaganda and COVID-19 in China, “In the Same Breath,” and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s “Summer of Soul (... Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” about the forgotten 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which celebrated Black music and culture and attracted over 300,000 people.
“We’re starting the festival with a bang for sure,” said Kim Yutani, the festival’s director of programming. “We felt that was important to have something that just really just directly reflects what we have been through this past year.”
“In the Same Breath,” she said, is a “search for the truth. And it is a bold indictment of the response of leadership in China and the US.”
Questlove’s film uses never-before-seen footage that had been sitting in a basement for 50 years.
“It’s an incredible debut from a firsttime director, a vitally important historical document and it’s a kind of reclaiming of history to reframe the present,” said Tabitha Jackson, the director of the festival. “But most important of all for us was just that it’s a stunning watch. It is joyful and vibrant and colorful and socially engaging and so beautifully crafted and put together.”
Opening night will also see the premiere of Sian Heder’s film “CODA,” about the hearing child of deaf parents co-starring Marlee Matlin.
“I think it’s going to be one of the big stories out of the festival this year,” Yutani said.
In addition to “CODA,” the U.S. Dramatic Competition section will feature films with Tiffany Haddish and Jerrod Carmichael (“On the Count of Three) and Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson who co-star in “Passing,” about two light-skinned Black women who choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1929 New York.