Sundance Film Festival — A–Z of films

He was known as an enigmatic type when alive and the film retains this air of mystery, which might prove frustrating for some hoping for a deeper dig.

All Light, Everywhere examines the microscopic and vertiginous in equal, beguiling measure.

Despite its share of mismatched moments, Young’s feature has a lot of creative flair.

Running a tight 84 minutes, the film still feels like an epic journey into both its seedy world and its heroine’s psyche.

While Heder’s screenplay relies on familiar beats, her writing and direction reveal a compassion and desire to understand each character’s feelings and emotions.

Coming Home In The Dark takes us to familiar places and renders them strange.

Beyond the immediate relationship between Kris and Horace, this is also a love letter to the importance of familial support and grandparents everywhere.

Its Jurassic Park style themes concerning failed Utopias passed through the prism of Sixties politics and activism have a certain childlike simplicity to them and, as such, are likely to prove more endearing to some audiences than others.

A compelling story, effectively told.

With jump cuts, fancy fades, and towels featuring cartoon owls and penguins, Amalia Ulman draws from her work as an artist and includes it seamlessly into the world of cinema.

Beshir keeps an eye on the natural environment as well as the sociopolitics, including the oppression of the Oromo people, while allowing a mythic element concerning the hunt for the water of life to flow alongside.

One of the most tightly written films of the year, this is also one of the funniest.

By animating the whole movie, Rasmussen makes the story feel more immersive and of a whole piece.

More interested in illustration than in analysis.

Writer/director Basholli directs with a deceptively simple handheld aesthetic, emphasising the bleak reality of the setting.

The end result is sweet but its best ideas are underdeveloped, leaving it with the slightness of something conceived on the hoof.

Added together, the elements create a compelling urgency by making the who, why and when of its movements unpredictable yet emotionally honest.

In the Earth begins as an unassuming creep-show about a scientist venturing out into a dangerous woods, but has far greater ambitions than a mere slasher or monster movie.

This isn’t just a tale of Chinese manipulation, however, as Wang goes on to show how America, too, played down the story initially, in ways that chillingly mirror what happened in Wuhan.

Makes you realise that its not just the horses that have been ridden hard for years but their jockeys, too.

Perhaps everything doesn't quite stack up into a neat narrative but as a film that explores the frosty hinterland between sociopathy and more simple teenage boredom it follows through.

Molocco’s performance is excellent and will make viewers feel for Molly even if they have no experience with this type of situation.

The setup may call to mind other films about women starting life anew in beautiful exotic locales — let’s say Tuscany for example. However, Land puts forth a quieter and darker tone.

This is a clear-eyed view of the choices Jesmark and those like him are facing, showing just how complex the situation is, cutting beyond work to community and culture.

Kranz, best known for his acting career, certainly didn’t pick an easy project for his debut behind the camera, but his work proves exceptional.

This complex story is driven by its characters and blessed with a trio of impressive but unshowy performances.

In a world where we are, not without reason, encouraged to "believe victims" this film acts as a cautionary tale that while sympathy is natural and good, at least a little light scepticism can go a long way.

Plays out as a not entirely satisfying mix of film history and a particularly melancholic episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

It’s shock comedy with no sense of impact or context, because before you can let the shock set in, the movie is running full steam ahead toward another disgusting episode.

Cohen and West draw on the rich archive of Murray's own work further illustrating it with archive footage and photographs of the periods the film refers to in order to paint a picture of quiet but firm activism.

The screenplay and direction deftly let the audience put together the pieces, making the discrepancies plain to see without hitting us over the head with their existence.

Everything here is wrapped in layers of fiction.

Poonpiriya shakes the past and the present gently together, sometimes with a dash of nostalgia and, at others, with a splash of regret.

On the whole, it's episodic and uneven although both men have serious acting chops and there's a studied bleakness to the mood, as though the grey weather has seeped into its soul.

The role is a gift for Negga, who has always evinced considerable talent but has not previously had the chance to demonstrate her abilities to this extent.

Although the directors are obviously rooting for Krasner to succeed, they try to present the situation 'in the round', giving plenty of room for those who worked under the previous administration to air their views as well.

One aspect that really lands as a parallel with the current pandemic is the uncertainty of it all.

Everything has been meticulously researched from the garish costumes and outlandish make-up to the mechanics of the business.

Watching Chamisa himself walk through crowds will set your nerves on edge as Neilsson’s camera reveals just how vulnerable he is.

Despite the whole thing being incredibly messy, it's eye-gogglingly enjoyable at the same time.

Riera may not be breaking new ground with her techniques but she takes us for a breezy and enjoyable canter over the expected jumps.

It’s hard to say which is worse: the plot additions that amount to self-parody or the stilted pacing.

A thoughtful depiction of how human rights violations can create a ripple effect of emotional scars, both in the victims and the people trying to help them.

A film that, while laudably ambitious, struggles to stop its ideas from becoming so unruly that they squabble with each other for attention.

Wright doesn't try to reinvent the documentary form, but draws on the Maels' energy, matching their playfulness and incorporating both stop-motion and a decoupage styles of animation into their back story.

Simple tricks like painting sets pink and amassing large piles of low cost everyday objects enable the filmmakers to create a distinctive fantasy landscape on a very low budget.

There’s a lot of great archive footage here from pivotal moments in the programme’s history.

There’s a difference between talking about something you remember and talking about something you have just watched – something to think about when you watch yet another documentary about another old white guy who has already had 15 films made about him

We’re all so used to seeing onscreen twins played by the same actor that there’s something disconcerting about seeing them played by two, especially in a film so concerned with the blurring of identities.

Filmed without commentary and with a poetic grace.

If the phrase "it's nice to be nice" took on film form, it would probably look a lot like Together Together.

Although this is Canadian it has the coolness of the European arthouse, drawing on nature photography at key moments to reinforce the moody sense of primal danger.

This film is long overdue.

Corbine gets caught up trying to cover the narrative ground, to set up both characters in twin time periods and explore their motivations and relationship.

Overall, the story is a familiar one, with a predictably, one could even say, cliched tragic sweep - a well-trodden pioneer trail that while watchable for the fine performances, still feels overly stuck in a rut.

Writing with Fire deftly infuses hope and inspiration into what could rightfully have been a wholly dire depiction of India’s most trodden-upon population.

A simple idea but very nicely executed.

Bravo too often steps back from more serious interrogation in favour of more surface thrills as the girls wave their derrieres in the air like they don't care.