Sundance Film Festival — A–Z of films

The smoke, the blasts, the spinning of ejecting shell casings, yells that become cries, the front-line as it becomes frantic.

No other Oscar nominee will make you feel angrier this year.

Dabis controls revelation with discipline, letting meaning accumulate rather than announcing itself, so that what finally emerges feels earned rather than engineered.

It’s not unusual to say that something cuts through the silence but in Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April it’s the silence that cuts through us.

While Gates has found an intriguing setting for her war satire, it’s less clear what she wants to say with it.

I laughed, and was not alone in doing so, out loud, and repeatedly.

This is acclaimed theatrical director Fall’s cinematic feature debut, and she proves adept at both evoking the warmth of her characters and capturing memorable images.

Nobody seems to notice that this unresponsive woman is not in fact paying attention to them, and Kramer spins this out impressively, building drama from a mixture of monologuing and imagination.

Although writer/director Rohan Kanawade grew up in the city, there is a deep sense of authenticity about the village setting, and the whole film is handled with a rare degree of sensitivity.

Successfully finds insight and social commentary

Gibson’s modesty about language is among the film’s most moving qualities

The idea of her as a lone voice is emphasised by striking cinematography, often of her riding her bike across the landscape, which has the wide-open quality of a western.

The expressionist feeling of early 20th century cinema is further enhanced by the specific colour scheme, resembling a very early version of Technicolor, while the sound recalls that of the early sound films.

The artifice takes over, making the desired authenticity completely fake.

There’s a particularity about this place that is etched into the screen.

Endless Cookie is not like anything else and yet it is very much like life.

Rose Byrne anchors the whole damn thing with a performance that gives the sense of wobbling for eternity on a tightrope without ever quite falling off.

The film’s initial loose and enjoyable construction gradually drifts towards a drawn-out and repetitive melodramatic conclusion.

Throughout you can see the ways in which the filmmakers are going the extra mile to empower their subjects.

In line with his economic storytelling, Russell has a gift for conveying little details through subtle performance notes where other filmmakers might telegraph intent.

Despite the depressing nature of what’s happening at the school, Talankin’s affection for his students and his resilient sense of humour ensure that the film is always engaging.

If you’re looking for a witty and heartfelt story with characters you can care about, you may find yourself falling head over heels.

If either the sense of danger associated with Isaac’s position was greater or the well of comedy ran deeper Brooks could have been on to something.

There may be a rumbling of trouble in the background, but Machoian and Webley capture the way that this doesn’t impinge on the feeling of joy that can come in a moment.

The film is a triumph of editing by Viridiana Lieberman, in terms of storytelling

Wishaw is an absolute wonder, delivering the conversational, sometimes stream-of-consciousness dialogue with a constantly engaging, almost hypnotic cadence.

Blyth and Tovey have chemistry to burn and Emmi generates pressure cooker tension as the past and many faces of the present prove to be just a synapse away in the kaleidoscope of Lucas’ mind.

The film’s success hinges on its unwillingness to take sides.

It could not be more apposite in exploring how whose who have lost everything in such environmental disasters, find resilience in human connections.

Writer/director/star Eva Victor has created a poem about the pain and absurdity of entering and continuing adulthood, even when things feel heavy and hopeless.

A sometimes compelling, often baffling work that doesn’t really solve the inherent problem of its subject matter, but swings for the fences trying.

It’s the situation that delivers the strangeness – and charm – mediated by Dudley’s performance as a woman who is self-deprecating and messy but lively enough to root for.

There are no doubt those who would argue this magic-hour drenched vision of America through the 1900s is a bit too chocolate-boxy for their liking but the weight of tradition can exert an impressive pull and does so here.

Perhaps what makes Twinless so memorable is its ability to generate empathy for characters even as they set themselves up for disaster.

It is silly and playful, but there are times when it becomes uncomfortable.

There’s a good deal of depth and nuance to these relationships as Blichfeldt uses them to illustrate how a society which makes women dependent on men magnifies every petty disagreement and sets them at odds with one another.

The heat of summer pulses beneath the action and we can virtually smell the sweat and decay as the sound of flies or a gathering storm punctuate the soundtrack.

A surprisingly droll deconstruction of crime reconstruction.