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Sundance Film Festival · 2016

Sundance Film Festival 2016

Spotlight

The festival says: "Regardless of where these films have played throughout the world, the Spotlight program is a tribute to the cinema we love."

Programme

9 films · 8 reviews

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Cemetery Of Splendor

Review preview for Cemetery Of Splendor

"At the heart of the kingdom there is nothing," it says, but all the fascinating splendour that exists around that gap!

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
A housewife tends to a soldier with a mysterious sleeping sickness and begins to experience strange dreams.

(Country: Thailand, UK, France, Germany, Malaysia, South Korea, Mexico, US, Norway; Year: 2015; Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Stars: Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi, Jarinpattra Rueangram, Petcharat Chaiburi, Tawatchai Buawat, Sujittraporn Wongsrikeaw, Bhattaratorn Senkraigul, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Pongsadhorn Lertsukon, Sasipim Piwansenee, Apinya Unphanlam, Richard Abramson, Kammanit Sansuklerd, Boonyarak Bodlakorn, Wacharee Nagvichien)

Full review

Embrace Of The Serpent (El Abrazo De La Serpiente)

Review preview for Embrace Of The Serpent

Structurally illustrates how the indigenous people don't see time as being a chronological straight line but as multiple realities existing simultaneously.

Rebecca Naughten · 3.5 out of 5
The story of the relationship between an Amazonian shaman and two scientists who, decades apart, search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.

(Country: Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina; Year: 2015; Director: Ciro Guerra; Writer: Ciro Guerra, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal; Stars: Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, Brionne Davis, Yauenkü Miguee, Nicolás Cancino, Luigi Sciamanna)

Full review

Green Room

Review preview for Green Room

Less psychological and more formulaic than his previous feature, this is still relentlessly entertaining.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A young punk band is trapped in a secluded venue after stumbling on a murder committed by neo-Nazis.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Jeremy Saulnier; Writer: Jeremy Saulnier; Stars: Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart, Mark Webber, Joe Cole)

Full review

Land Of Mine

Review preview for Land Of Mine

The randomness of death in times of war aside, Land Of Mine - perhaps unavoidably - leans towards the conventional in its overall narrative arc.

Rebecca Naughten · 3.5 out of 5
In the aftermath of World War Two, the Allies used German prisoners of war to defuse and clear landmines from the Danish coastline.

(Country: Germany, Denmark; Year: 2015; Director: Martin Zandvliet; Writer: Martin Zandvliet; Stars: Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman, Emil Belton, Oskar Belton, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Laura Bro, Oskar Bökelmann, Leon Seidel, Karl Alexander Seidel, Maximilian Beck, August Carter, Time Bülow, Alexander Rasch, Julius Kochinke)

Full review

US premiere

The Lobster

Review preview for The Lobster

Lanthimos satirises our obsession with relationships and modern day electronic dating rituals although the results are not nearly as funny and knowing as the director clearly thinks.

Richard Mowe · 3 out of 5
In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods.

(Country: Greece, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France; Year: 2015; Director: Yorgos Lanthimos; Writer: fthymis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos; Stars: Colin Farrell, Léa Seydoux, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly, Olivia Coleman)

Full review

Maggie's Plan

Review preview for Maggie's Plan

Director Rebecca Miller gets terrific performances out of an admittedly terrific cast.

Robert Munro · 4 out of 5
A young woman’s determination to have a child catapults her into a nervy love triangle.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Rebecca Miller; Writer: Rebecca Miller, Rebecca Miller, Karen Rinaldi; Stars: Julianne Moore, Travis Fimmel, Bill Hader, Ethan Hawke, Maya Rudolph, Greta Gerwig, Wallace Shawn, Alex Morf, Mina Sundwall, Kathleen Hanna, Jackson Frazer, Sue Jean Kim, Fredi Walker-Browne, Leetopher Scott, Monte Greene)

Full review

Rams (Hrútar)

Review preview for Rams

Hákonarson proves himself a master of his material - a sort of rural Ken Loach - shooting sparingly yet dramatically against extreme weather conditions.

Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
In a remote Icelandic farming valley, two brothers who haven't spoken in 40 years have to come together in order to save what's dearest to them - their sheep.

(Country: Iceland; Year: 2015; Director: Grímur Hákonarson; Writer: Grímur Hákonarson; Stars: Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte Bøving, Jon Benonysson, Gunnar Jónsson, Þorleifur Einarsson) , Trailer

Full review See: Composer Atli Örvarsson on his family connection to Rams and drawing on tradition , Grímur Hákonarson on Rams, Little Moscow, The County and Icelandic co-operation

Viva

In contemporary Cuba, a father and son struggle to escape from each other’s expectations, duty, and the burden of past sins.

(Country: Ireland, Cuba; Year: 2015; Director: Paddy Breathnach; Writer: Mark O'Halloran; Stars: Héctor Medina, Jorge Perugorría, Luis Alberto García, Renata Maikel Machin Blanco, Luis Manuel Alvarez, Paula Andrea Ali Rivera, Laura Alemán, Oscar Ibarra Napoles, Mark O'Halloran, Luis Angel Batista Bruzón, Luis Daniel Ventura Garbendia, Yudisvany Rabu, Maikol Villa Puey, Jorge Martínez Castillo, Tomás Cao)