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Sundance Film Festival · 2022

Sundance Film Festival 2022

Shorts

Programme

14 films · 14 reviews

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575 Castro St

Review preview for 575 Castro St

There's a mood of eerie melancholy as Milk lays out the reasons why he might become a target for someone who is "insecure, terrified, afraid" - a concept that has lost none of its resonance with campaigners in many fields of equal rights in the years that have passed since.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A light and motion study accompanying a tape recording by Harvey Milk to be played "in the event of my death by assassination".

(Country: US; Year: 2008; Director: Jenni Olson)

Full review

Alone

Review preview for Alone

Bradley has a feel for emotional moments, knowing when to push in close and when to step back.

Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
An investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern Black American family, seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.

(Year: 2017; Director: Garrett Bradley)

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Bestia

Review preview for Bestia

Emotions here are betrayed by the twitch of a knife, a violent dream, an envelope crumpled in a hand or a long toke on a cigarette.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
A trip into the psyche of a Chilean torturer.

(Country: Chile; Year: 2021; Director: Hugo Covarrubias; Writer: Hugo Covarrubias, Martín Erazo)

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Boneshaker

Review preview for Boneshaker

This is a fluid film which, though impressionistic in terms of its narrative, carries a weight of emotion and the positive energy of childhood as well as a longing for fundamental connection.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
An African family lost in America travel to a Louisiana church to find a cure for a problem child.

(Director: Nuotama Frances Bodomo; Writer: Frances Bodomo)

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Brotherhood

Review preview for Brotherhood

The seeming remoteness of the military actions - and their immediate impact on civilians - becomes less abstract when paralleled by the tensions within the family.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Mohamed is deeply shaken when his oldest son Malik returns home after a long journey with a mysterious new wife.

(Country: Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, Sweden; Year: 2018; Director: Meryam Joobeur; Writer: Meryam Joobeur; Stars: Kais Ayari, Mohamed Grayaâ, Mouldi Kriden)

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The Burden (Min Börda)

Review preview for The Burden

Niki Lindroth von Bahr's film is once again a masterclass of model-making.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
The Burden is an animated and animal musical, enacted in a modern marketplace next to a large freeway.

(Country: Sweden; Year: 2017; Director: Niki Lindroth von Bahr; Writer: Niki Lindroth von Bahr) , Official site

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Deerwoods Deathtrap

Review preview for Deerwoods Deathtrap

The use of that Super 8 is crucial to the feel of the film, already giving it the emotional quality of something that is remembered, even though we know on an intellectual level it is a contemporary item.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The director's parents recollect the day they nearly died.

(Country: United States; Year: 2022; Director: James P Gannon; Writer: James P Gannon; Stars: Elizabeth Gannon, John W Gannon)

Full review

Huella

Review preview for Huella

Ortega uses the power of suggestion to stoke the mood - the whispers of prayer, a sudden wind blowing up where it shouldn't, an unexpected voice at the end of the line.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
The death of her grandmother sees a woman take an unexpected dance with grief.

(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Gabriela Ortega; Writer: Gabriela Ortega; Stars: Shakira Barrera, Denise Blasor, Carla Valentine, Gabriela Bonet, Magaly Castellanos, Franceli Chapman, Jannet Galdamez, Celeste Lanuza, Gloria Lanuza, Cynthia Morales, Sylvia Morales)

Full review

Night Bus

Review preview for Night Bus

The setting has an immediacy, we've all been in one of these stations late at night, with its flickering lights and eerie stillness.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Trouble brews on a bus after a pearl necklace goes missing.

(Country: Taiwan; Year: 2020; Director: Joe Hsieh; Writer: Joe Hsieh)

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On The Ice (Sikumi)

Review preview for On The Ice

Sikumi is certainly stark, and yet there is room even in this cold, austere backdrop for the warmth of the human spirit.

Anton Bitel · 4.5 out of 5
An Inuit hunter inadvertantly witnesses a murder.

(Country: US; Year: 2008; Director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean; Writer: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean; Stars: Tony Bryant, Olemaun Rexford, Brad Weyiouanna) , Official site

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The Panola Project

Review preview for The Panola Project

The directors also capture the day of the inoculations, which is likely to serve a secondary purpose to jab-hesitant viewers, since it shows people receiving the vaccine in minutes with no ill-effects.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Profile of Dorothy Oliver and her tireless work to get residents of the town of Panola vaccinated against Covid.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S Levine; Writer: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S. Levine; Stars: Dorothy Oliver)

Full review

Sister

Review preview for Sister

Sister is packed full of character yet retains its melancholy edge throughout.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A man thinks back to his childhood memories of growing up with an annoying little sister in China in the 1990s. What would his life have been like if things had gone differently?

(Country: China, US; Year: 2019; Director: Siqi Song; Writer: Siqi Song; Stars: Liu Bingyang)

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Spider

Review preview for Spider

A lesson in how to build atmosphere and wrong-foot an audience.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
When practical jokes go bad...

(Country: Australia; Year: 2007; Director: Nash Edgerton; Writer: Nash Edgerton, David Michôd; Stars: Nash Edgerton, Mirrah Foulkes, Chum Ehelepola, Bruno Xavier)

Full review