Sundance returns to the slopes

Déborah Lukumuena and Le'Shantey Bonsu in Girl Photo: Courtesy of GFF

After a two-year hiatus in terms of a physical event, Sundance returns to an in-person festival this year, kicking off this evening in Park City, Utah. This year’s showcase will operate as a hybrid event, with many of the films also available to stream online via its platform. The festival is certainly returning as an ‘event’ to a changed landscape, as streamers like Netflix increasingly focused on production and tightening the budgets rather than big spending.

Whether this will mean less news about late-night bidding wars remains to be seen but, of course, those heading to the ice cold mountain in Utah won’t care about that. It’s easy to forget, from afar - and especially after the pandemic stymied so many - that festivals are living, breathing creatures, each distinct and with their own energy.

Personally, I’m most looking forward to getting back to the buzz, the energy of filmgoers who are hoping to see the next Amy Adams or Jennifer Lawrence make their breakout performance, or come across the next Quentin Tarantino or Chloé Zhao.

There’s plenty of British interest in the snow this year, including Ella Glendining’s documentary Is There Anybody Out There? An intimate consideration of her own life that also skewers ableism, Glendining told us: “It became so much more personal than I was expecting.” - we’ll be bringing you the full interview along with a review after the film’s premiere on Sunday.

Against The Tide Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

We’ll also be bringing you a chat with Glasgow-based filmmaker Adura Onashile, whose moving debut feature Girl, is set in the city and will open Glasgow Film Festival after its world premiere in Sundance. I asked her how she feels about bringing the film to Utah and then back home and she said: “I can't really envisage either of them. But the Glasgow one, like, it feels so close, because this is my home. And I love this city. Andit's magical that this film is opening that festival. It's wild.” More on her delicately worked and beautifully shot film after its premiere on Sunday.

As always at Sundance, there are plenty of documentaries as well as fiction features on the slate, ranging from environmental docs like Against The Tide and sea mining film Deep Rising through to the reportage of 20 Days In Mariupol and a look at the lives of transgender Black street workers in Kokomo City. Among the quikier docs on the slate is Kim’s Video, a film that sees David Redmon and Ashley Sabin on an oddball quest to trackdown the contents of a once-famous New York video rental store, which is full of surprises.

We’ll also be bringing you an interview with Against The Tide director Sarvnik Kaur. Speaking about her approach to the film, which charts the story of two Koli fishermen whose lives have taken different paths in terms of how they fish, she said: “I realised that my creativity is very limited, and their lives are infinite. So there is nothing that I could impose onto their lives, or I could bring that wasn't already being lived.” More on that film after its Friday premiere.

Films likely to attract distributor interest include Bad Behaviour, which is the debut feature of Jane Campion’s daughter Alice Englert, who also stars alongside Ben Wishaw and Jennifer Connolly. It sees an ex-child actor get more than she bargains for in her turbulent relationship with her daughter after she goes on a spiritual retreat.

Drift Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Anthony Chen’s Drift has also been garnering a lot of interest pre-festival, no doubt because it stars the fabulous Cynthia Erivo as a refugee who flees Liberia for Greece.

Fans of The New Yorker will no doubt be curious to see how the adaptation of Cat Person turns out. Directed by Booksmart writer Susan Fogel, it stars Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun.

Familiar director names include Sebastian Silva, who has previously brought Magic Magic, Crystal Fairy and The Maid to the festival. This year he’s here with Rotting In The Sun, which I am promised with have an “insanely raucous” premiere at the weekend. The synopsis reads: “Frustrated Ketamine-addled artist Sebastian Silva crosses paths with ingratiating comedian-influencer Jordan Firstman on a nude beach in Mexico. When Firstman goes to visit him in Mexico City, he finds his new collaborator has mysteriously disappeared…” Intriguing, if nothing else.

Another Sundance regular is Ira Sachs who’ll be making his eighth appearance at the festival with Passages, starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos, which sees a male couple’s relationship threatened after one has an affair with a woman.

Plus Irishman John Carney - who previously served up the crowdpleasers Once and Sing Street - returns with Flora And Son about a single mum trying to reconnect with her son through music. Anticipation of a toe-tapping score and plenty of emotional clout is high for the film, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eve Hewson, Jack Reynor and Orén Kinlan.

The festival runs until January 29 and as always we’ll be bringing you news, features and reviews right through the run, so do check our dedicated Sundance page regularly.