Rose Glass’ much-anticipated follow-up toSaint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding, is among 11 UK productions or co-productions heading to Salt Lake City for next year’s Sundance Film Festival (January 18-28), following yesterday’s line-up announcement of the 82 features programmed.
The overall figure of UK projects programmed is similar to last year’s line-up. Six UK productions and five UK co-productions premiered in 2023. In 2024, two UK productions and nine co-productions will play.
Screen Star of Tomorrow Glass’ thriller Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart, and is set in the world of competitive bodybuilding. The US-UK co-production is produced by A24 alongside the UK’s Andrea Cornwell for Lobo Films and Oliver Kassman for Escape Plan Productions. Film4 developed the project, and Lionsgate will release in the UK and Ireland. It will play in the Midnight strand.
UK production Layla is heading to the world cinema dramatic competition, and is the debut feature of 2018 Screen Star of Tomorrow Amrou Al-Kadhi, about the romance between a British-Palestinian drag performer and a seemingly successful white gay man. It is backed by Film4 and the BFI and is produced by UK producer Savannah James-Bayly of Fox Cub Films.
Also in this strand is Sebastian, a co-pro between the UK, Finland and Belgium. James Watson is the UK producer on the project alongside Scottish co-producers Ciara Barry and Rosie Crerar of barry crerar – who produced Sundance 2023 premiere Girl. Finnish-UK filmmaker Mikko Mäkelä directs the drama, that unfurls around one man’s secret life moonlighting as an escort. BFI and Screen Scotland are among the funders.
Shiori Ito’s Black Box Diaries is a Japanese, US and UK co-production, that has found its home in the world cinema documentary competition. Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender.
Swinging into the Next strand will be Kneecap, a BFI, Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland-backed project, about an anarchic Belfast rap trio that becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save their Irish mother tongue. Michael Fassbender stars, while Jack Tarling and Trevor Birney produce. Both Kneecap and Layla were part of the Cannes Great8 showcase.
The Premieres strand sees Chris Smith’s UK-US documentary Devo premiere, about the titular new wave band born out of the 1970 Kent State University massacre in the US. Also in this section is UK-Germany co-production The Outrun, from Nora Fingscheidt, which sees Saoirse Ronan and Paapa Essiedu star in this feature about a woman who returns to Scotland’s Orkney Islands in an attempt to heal from a life on the edge in London. Producers are Sarah Brocklehurst, Dominic Norris, Jack Lowden and Ronan.
UK-US documentarySuper/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, directed by Ian Bonhôte and produced by Lizzie Gillett, Robert Ford, has also landed in Premieres. It uses home videos and never-before-seen personal archives to paint a picture of Reeve’s extraordinary life.
In the Family Matinee strand, UK animation 10 Lives will play, directed by Christopher Jenkins and with a voice cast including Mo Gilligan, Simone Ashley, Sophie Okonedo, Dylan Llewellyn, Zayn Malik, Bill Nighy.
New Frontier is home to US-UK co-production Eno, that received support from the UK’s Global Screen Fund. Gary Hustwit directs this doc about the creative process of Brian Eno, the prolific musician who produced for the likes of David Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads.
Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes Un Certain Regard title How To Have Sex continues its festival run in the Spotlight strand.
Although produced out of the US, UK director and actor Chiwetel Ejiofor’s latest Rob Peace is also in the Sundance line-up. It follows a man who grew up in an impoverished part of Newark in the US, graduated from Yale with degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and went on to live a dual life as an academic and enormously successful marijuana dealer.
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