DIG! XX Ondi Timoner‘s Sundance hit returns to the festival for its 20th anniversary with more footage than before. If, like me, you missed its original festival run, you’ll eat up DIG! XX and its quintessential 90s music deep dive into the tumultuous relationship between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Timoner gets a completely unfiltered look inside Read More →
SAY HI AFTER YOU DIE Sundance 2024 short film SAY HI AFTER YOU DIE is a laugh-out-loud look at grief, mental health, and forever friendship. Following the unexpected passing of her best friend, Gloria finds herself talking to a porta-potty. It’s easy to see why the film won the Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction. It is that wonderful. Read More →
AND SO IT BEGINS Amid Filipino elections, a grassroots movement emerges to protect truth and democracy from growing threats. People unite in joyful acts of resistance, kindling hope while autocracy expands. Returning to Sundance four years after the premiere of A THOUSAND CUTS, director Ramona S. Diaz gives audiences a companion piece about the fragility of democracy. In the Philippines Read More →
REALM OF SATAN Filmmaker Scott Cummings brings Sundance 2024 audiences into the everyday lives of Satanists. The Church of Satan boasts innumerable followers around the world. REALM OF SATAN introduces us to members from all backgrounds in this part experimental, part cinema verité documentary that both challenges and pokes fun at any preconceived notions we may have had in the Read More →
ETERNAL YOU Sundance 2024 documentary ETERNAL YOU is deeply disturbing and endlessly intriguing. It is something straight out of a horror sci-fi film. Filmmakers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck guide audiences through the latest technological advances in AI, where versions of your lost loved ones can interact with you in real-time. The moral and emotional gray area this tech exists Read More →
SUJO Ominous, heartbreaking, and beautifully shot, the Sundance 2024 film SUJO, from Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero (Identifying Features), examines cyclical violence and trauma through the lives of the family left behind by a murdered cartel member. Nemesia hides her nephew Sujo with the help of Rosalia and her two young sons, Jeremy and Jai. During early childhood, the five Read More →
A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS A life chronicled most intimately and authentically, the Payne family experiences physical and emotional upheaval after a family tragedy. Choosing to raise their family on a secluded farm in the woods of Norway, Maria and Nik wanted nothing more than to instill a love of nature into their children. Potentially forced to sell the beloved Read More →
The Sundance Film Festival has launched the careers of indie film directors, writers, and actors now for 40 years. Back with in-person and online screening opportunities, this year’s iteration boasts new and bold storytelling from every genre. Here are a handful of films we’ll track in 2024. For more information and tickets to Sundance 2024, click here! Be on Read More →
IRON BUTTERFLIES This is a look at the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur which was shot down by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine in 2014 threw news video, reconstructions, trial footage, and intercepted recordings. This is going to be the most low-key film you will see on the never-ending Ukraine conflict. There is no Read More →
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell, are the men behind the art design studio, Hipgnosis. Named by Syd Barrett when he scrolled the name across a door, the studio went on to create hundreds of record covers for all of the great bands and performers. One of the great films of the year Read More →
SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD The ancient Estonian ritual of sauna building is a physical and spiritual cleansing. Women gather to share everything from funny childhood stories to earthly, almost guttural chants to intimate confessions with unfiltered honesty. Anna Hints‘ Sundance 2023 documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a visceral and profoundly deep film. Mesmerizing closeups of body parts beading with sweat captured Read More →
BAD PRESS Imagine a scenario, if you will, where the federal government controlled the entirety of the media. Ask North Korea and China’s citizens how well that works for them. Native American tribes are sovereign nations. They do not have freedom of the press. In the Sundance 2023 documentary from Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler, BAD PRESS exposes the crushing Read More →
FANTASTIC MACHINE Memory preservation, emotional resonance, exploration, and exposure of truth, FANTASTIC MACHINE explores the history of capturing the first image to the deliberate curation of media content through the ages. The swiftness of the manipulation of images shocked me. From the beginning, the film is ruthless in its takedown of perceived truth. It is what we don’t see changes everything. Fantastic Read More →
IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? In search of someone else with the same physical condition, Ella Glendining takes us on a thoughtful journey in Sundance 2023 documentary IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? The editing combined with the score creates a charming and deeply affecting quality. Confessional diary logs place us in Ella’s headspace. She uses home videos and sit-down chats Read More →
TALK TO ME When an unusual object allows a group of teens to not only speak with the dead but allow them to enter their bodies, things get violent and personal when Mia’s mother reaches out from beyond the grave. The veil has lifted, and secrets will spill over the threshold, whether Mia and her friends like it or not. Read More →
MAMACRUZ In Patricia Ortega‘s Sundance 2023 film MAMACRUZ, devout seamstress Mari Cruz spends her days dutifully attending to the needs of her church community and caring for her grandchild while her daughter tours with a dance troupe. But, quite by accident, we discover her longing for touch. What begins as an accidental discovery of internet pornography and then unexpected sexual Read More →
PIANOFORTE Four stages. 21 straight days. Since 1927, The Chopin Competition has been held in Warsaw. Featuring the most elite piano players in the world, Sundance’s 2023 documentary film PIANOFORTE follows a small group of contestants vying for the illustrious title. The competition does not occur annually, making it all the more exclusive. Here is how it works: Stage One: Read More →
AIRHOSTESS-737 In AirHostess- 737, we meet Vanina, a 39-year-old flight attendant trying to hold it together. Self-conscious over her new braces, her anxiety rises as the film progresses, exacerbated by a passenger, the pilots, and strong turbulence. But there is far more on Vanina’s mind than her newfound hardware. The choreography of the scenes is spectacular. The audience serves as Read More →
TROY Living in New York has its ups and downs. No matter how expensive your apartments are, the walls are always paper thin. You come to know your neighbors for better or for worse. Director Mike Donahue and writer Jen Silverman give Sundance 2023 audiences so much in their 15-minute short film TROY. Thea and Charlie share a wall with Read More →
2023 Sundance Film Festival Announces Lineup of 99 Feature Films Find Out Why All Eyes Are On Independents In-Person Ticket Packages Now On Sale; Online Ticket Package Sales Begin December 13 Top L–R: Bravo, Burkina!, Girl, Polite Society, Mami Wata.Center L–R: Going Varsity in Mariachi, The Accidental Getaway Driver, Deep Rising, Cassandro.Bottom L–R: The Pod Generation, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Read More →
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