The hybrid 2022 Sundance Film Festival has announced a roster of 82 features that include world premieres for Sophie Hyde’s comedy drama Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, Michel Hazanavicius’s zombie comedy Final Cut, and Lena Dunham’s drama Sharp Stick as well as new work from John Boyega, Noomi Rapace and Julianne Moore.
Features, New Frontiers selections and shorts (the latter will be announced on Friday) will screen from January 20-30 2022 in person in the Utah hubs of Park City and Salt Lake City as well as online via on-demand windows on the festival’s acclaimed portal. Select films will also play at seven arthouse venues across the US on the final weekend. In-person events will operate under Covid protocols and Sundance brass said they were “confident” in the festival’s hybrid model as the Omicron variant spreads.
The festival will open on January 20 with the biodigital presentation in person and online of New Frontier’s 32 Sounds from Sam Green. This will be followed by a Day One roster of 10 features and a shorts programme. Day One features are Emergency, Fire Of Love, Fresh, La Guerra Civil, A Love Song, Marte Um (Mars One), The Princess, Tantura, When You Finish Saving The World, and The Worst Person In The World. Amy Poehler’s documentary Lucy and Desi is the Salt Lake City Opening Night Gala Film and premieres on January 21.After Yang, screening in Spotlight, has been awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.
Some 43 or 52% of the feature roster are directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as women; one (1%) by a filmmaker identifying as non-binary; 29 or 35% by those who identify as people of colour; and eight or 10% by people who identify as LGBTQ+.
Turning to the individual sections Boyega stars in Abi Damaris Corbin’s U.S. Dramatic Competition entry 892 as Brian Brown-Easley, the Marine veteran who held up a bank when his disability cheque failed to materialise. It is one of several anticipated entries alongside Keke Palmer playing an enslaved woman in the Deep South iwho escapes to discover the real world in 1973 in Krystin Ver Linden’s Alice; XYZ Films’ Finland-shot Dual from Riley Stearns starring Karen Gillan; and horror thriller Watcher directed by Chloe Okuno starring Maika Monroe and produced by Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Roy Lee and Steven Schneider’s Spooky Pictures.
Among U.S. Documentary Competition selections are Sara Dosa’s Fire Of Love about a pair of scientists and lovers whose fascination for volcanoes ultimately kills them; The Janes by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, a timely film as the landmark ‘Roe v Wade’ ruling comes under attack in the US which centres on the Jane Collective underground movement that launched in the 1960s to offer safe abortions (companion piece Call Jane from Carol screenwriter and feature directorial debutante Phyllis Nagy starring Elizabeth Banks screens in Premieres); and Meg Smaker’s Jihad Rehab following former Guantanamo inmates in a secret rehab centre for Islamist extremists.
World Cinema Dramatic Competition brings Rapace in Goran Stolevski’s Australian film You Won’t Be Alone about a witch in 19th century Macedonia; family drama The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future (Chil-Fra-Ger) from Chilean filmmaker Francisca Alegria whose short And The Whole Sky Fit In The Dead Cow’s Eye played Sundance in 2017; Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Bolivian highlands drama Utama sold by Alpha Violet in Cannes; and Maryna Er Gorbach’s topical drama Klondike (Ukr-Tur) set against the backdrop of border tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
In World Cinema Documentary Competition there is a rare entry from Myanmar in the form of Snow Hnin El Hlaing’s chronicle of clinic life in Midwives; Kathryn Ferguson’s portrait of Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor in Nothing Compares (Ire-UK); Moroccan filmmaker Rita Baghdadi’s Sirens (Leb), which went through Cannes’ female-focused finance event Breaking Through The Lens in 2019 and centres on an Iraqi all-female thrash metal band; and Joe Hunting’s UK film We Met In Virtual Reality shot entirely inside the VR realm.
Playing in Premieres are Number 9 Films’ Living (UK) with Bill Nighy as a terminally ill civil servant, which Oliver Hermanus directed from Kazuo Ishiguro’s adaptation of Akira Kurasawa’s 1952 drama Ikiru; Ramin Bahrani’s documentary 2nd Chance, about a broke pizzeria owner who invented the bulletproof vest; Amy Poehler’s documentary tribute to Lucille Ball Lucy And Desi, which pairs with Amazon Studios’ current awards hopeful Being The Riccardos; and feature directorial debuts from Jesse Eisenberg (When You Finish Saving The World starring Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard) and Eva Longoria Baston (UK entry La Guerra Civil about boxing rivals Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez).
The section contains documentary profiles of Princess Diana (Lightbox’s The Princess, which Ed Perkins directed from archive material) and Kanye West (jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy from Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah); as well as Hazanavicius’s Final Cut about a zombie outbreak on a zombie movie with Romain Duris and Bérénice Bejo; Hyde’s Good Luck To You, Leo Grande from Cornerstone Films and Genesius starring Emma Thompson as a widow looking for connection and good sex and Screen Star Of Tomorrow 2021 Daryl McCormack as the sex worker whom she hires; and Dunham’s latest film Sharp Stick starring Kristine Froseth and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Midnight includes Danish thriller Speak No Evil from Christian Tafdrup; Caroleta Pereda’s Spanish kidnapping thriller Piggy; and Hatching from Hanna Bergholm which IFC Films bought off a promo at the 2020 virtual Cannes market and is one of three entries from Finland this year alongside coming-of-age tale Girl Picture from Alli Haapasalo in World Cinema Dramatic Competition and Tania Anderson’s story of LDS missionaries The Mission in World Cinema Documentary Competition.
Among the NEXT selections are Sierra Pettengill’s documentary Riotsville, USA exploring the militarisation of the US police, and Chase Joynt’s documentary Framing Agnes about a cast of transgender actors on a talk show who discover case files from a 1950s gender clinic. The Guilty director Gustav Moller makes his first foray into TV as part of Indie Episodics with Swedish psychological drama series The Dark Heart from FLX/Discovery+, and Film i Skane. The section includes Kate Bosworth as an assassin in Michael Polish’s contemporary western Bring On The Dancing Horses.
As previously announced the New Frontier showcase of multimedia storytelling, art installations and performance will be fully biodigital with selections presented simultaneously at The Egyptian and on returning virtual venue The Spaceship (accessible from January 20-28). Entries include Atua (NZ), an encounter with Pacific gods in AR; Australian VR experience Gondwana which runs for 24 hours and explores alternative futures for the ancient Daintree rainforest; and The State Of Global Peace, where the viewer plays the leader of a fictitious country faced with student activists at the United Nations.
Festival director Tabitha Jackson, director of programming Kim Yutani and their team received 3,762 feature submissions – 1,665 from the US and 2,121 international – of which 1,070 or 28% were directed by one of more filmmakers who identify as women, 52 or 1% from those who identify as non-binary, 1,611 or 43% by those identifying as people of color; and 413 or 11% by filmmakers who identify as LGBTQ+.
Jackson said she and her team were looking forward to welcoming in-person attendees and celebrate new ways of gathering. “Building on our experience last year, we’ve discovered new possibilities of convergence, and we embrace the fact that we are now an expanded community in which active participation matters, and audience presence — however it manifests — is essential to our mission.”
Yutani said this year’s line-up reflected the “unsettling and uncertain times we’ve been living in for the past year and a half” and challenged viewers “to look at the world through different lenses and examine and reevaluate how these stories impact us now and in the future”.
The short films line-up will be announced on Friday (December 10). All synopses below are provided by Sundance and are US films and world premieres unless indicated otherwise.
U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Presenting the world premieres of fiction feature films, the category has showcased in recent years 2021 sensation Coda, Passing, Minari, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, The Farewell, Clemency, Eighth Grade and Sorry To Bother You.
892
Dir: Abi Damaris Corbin
When Brian Brown-Easley’s disability check fails to materialise from Veterans Affairs, he finds himself on the brink of homelessness and breaking his daughter’s heart. No other options, he walks into a Wells Fargo Bank and says “I’ve got a bomb.“
Cast: John Boyega, Michael Kenneth Williams, Nicole Beharie, Connie Britton, Olivia Washington, Selenis Leyva.
Alice
Dir: Krystin Ver Linden
When a woman in servitude in 1800s Georgia escapes the 55-acre confines of her captor, she discovers the shocking reality that exists beyond the treeline…it’s 1973. Inspired by true events.
Cast: Keke Palmer, Common, Jonny Lee Miller, Gaius Charles.
Blood
Dir: Bradley Rust Gray
After the death of her husband, a young woman travels to Japan where she finds solace in an old friend. But when comforting turns to affection, she realizes she must give herself permission before she can fall in love again.
Cast: Carla Juri, Takashi Ueno, Gustaf Skarsgård, Futaba Okazaki, Issey Ogata.
Cha Cha Real Smooth
Dir: Cooper Raiff
A directionless college graduate embarks on a relationship with a young mom and her teenage daughter while learning the boundaries of his new bar mitzvah party-starting gig.
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Vanessa Burghardt, Evan Assante, Brad Garrett, Leslie Mann.
Dual
Dir: Riley Stearns
After receiving a terminal diagnosis, Sarah commissions a clone of herself to ease the loss for her friends and family. When she makes a miraculous recovery, her attempt to have her clone decommissioned fails, and leads to a court-mandated duel to the death.
Cast: Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale.
Emergency
Dir: Carey Williams
Ready for a night of partying, a group of Black and Latino college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an unusual emergency.
Cast: RJ Cyler, Donald Watkins, Sebastian Chacon, Sabrina Carpenter.
DAY ONE
Master
Dir: Mariama Diallo
Three women strive to find their place at an elite New England university. As the insidious spectre of racism haunts the campus in increasingly supernatural fashion, each fights to survive in this space of privilege.
Cast: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, Talia Ryder, Talia Balsam, Amber Gray.
Nanny
Dir: Nikyatu Jusu
Aisha is an undocumented nanny working for a privileged couple in New York City. As she prepares for the arrival of the son she left behind in Senegal, a violent supernatural presence invades her reality, threatening the American dream she is painstakingly piecing together.
Cast: Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls, Morgan Spector, Rose Decker, Leslie Uggams.
Palm Trees And Power Lines
Dir: Jamie Dack
Seventeen-year-old Lea spends her summer aimlessly tanning with her best friend, tiptoeing around her fragile mother, and getting stoned with a group of boys from school. This monotony is disrupted by an encounter with Tom, a man twice her age, who promises an alternative to Lea’s unsatisfying adolescent life.
Cast: Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, Gretchen Mol.
Watcher
Dir: Chloe Okuno
A young woman moves into a new apartment with her fiancé and is tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building.
Cast: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Ciubuciu Bogdan Alexandru.
U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Recent selections include current and prior awards contenders Summer Of Soul (or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Boys State, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, Apollo 11, Knock Down The House, One Child Nation, American Factory, Three Identical Strangers and On Her Shoulders.
Aftershock
Dirs: Paula Eiselt, Tonya Lewis Lee
Following the preventable deaths of their partners due to childbirth complications, two bereaved fathers galvanise activists, birth-workers and physicians to reckon with one of the most pressing American crises of our time – the US maternal health crisis.
Descendant
Dir: Margaret Brown
Clotilda, the last ship carrying enslaved Africans to the United States, arrived in Alabama 40 years after African slave trading became a capital offense. It was promptly burned, and its existence denied. After a century shrouded in secrecy and speculation, descendants of the Clotilda’s survivors are reclaiming their story.
The Exiles
Dirs: Ben Klein, Violet Columbus
Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
Fire Of Love
Dir: Sara Dosa
Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unraveling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing the most explosive imagery ever recorded. A doomed love triangle between Katia, Maurice and volcanoes, told through their archival footage.
DAY ONE
Free Chol Soo Lee
Dirs: Julie Ha, Eugene Yi
After a Korean immigrant is wrongly convicted of a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gang murder, Asian Americans unite as never before to free Chol Soo Lee. A former street hustler becomes the symbol for a landmark movement. But once out, he self-destructs, threatening the movement’s legacy and the man himself.
I Didn’t See You There
Dir: Reid Davenport
Spurred by the spectacle of a circus tent that goes up outside his Oakland apartment, a disabled filmmaker launches into an unflinching meditation on freakdom, (in)visibility, and the pursuit of individual agency.
The Janes
Dirs: Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes
In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Seven women were arrested. The accused were part of a clandestine network. Using codenames, blindfolds and safe houses, they built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves JANE.
Jihad Rehab
Dir: Meg Smaker
A group of Al-Qaeda members are transferred from Guantanamo to a secretive rehabilitation center for Islamic extremists.
TikTok, Boom.
Dir: Shalini Kantayya
With TikTok now crowned the world’s most downloaded app, these are the personal stories of a cultural phenomenon, told through an ensemble cast of Gen-Z natives, journalists and experts alike. This film seeks to answer, ‘why is an app, best known for people dancing, the target of so much controversy?’
WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Ten films from emerging filmmaking talents around the world. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Hive, Luzzu, The Souvenir, The Guilty, Monos, Yardie, The Nile Hilton Incident and Second Mother.
Brian And Charles (UK)
Dir: Jim Archer
A story of friendship, love, and letting go. And a 7ft tall robot that eats cabbages. A comedy shot in documentary format.
Cast: David Earl, Chris Hayward, Louise Brealey, Jamie Michie, Lowri Izzard, Mari Izzard.
The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future (Chil-Fra-Ger)
Dir: Francisca Alegría
Cecilia and her children travel to her aging father’s dairy farm after he has a heart attack. Back in her childhood home, Cecilia is met by her mother, a woman dead for many years, whose presence brings to life a painful past chorused by the natural world around them.
Cast: Leonor Varela, Mia Maestro, Alfredo Castro, Marcial Tagle, Enzo Ferrada, Luis Dubó.
Dos Estaciones (Mex)
Dir: Juan Pablo González
In the bucolic hills of Mexico’s Jalisco highlands, iron-willed businesswoman Maria Garcia fights the impending collapse of her tequila factory.
Cast: Teresa Sánchez, Tatín Vera, Rafaela Fuentes, Manuel García-Rulfo..
Gentle (Hun)
Dirs: Anna Eszter Nemes, László Csuja
Edina, a female bodybuilder, is ready to sacrifice everything for the dream she shares with Adam, her partner and trainer: to win the world championship. The odd love she finds on her way there makes her see the difference between her dreams and her true self.
Cast: Eszter Csonka, György Turós, Csaba Krisztik.
Girl Picture (Fin)
Dir: Alli Haapasalo
Mimmi, Emma and Rönkkö are girls at the cusp of womanhood, trying to draw their own contours. In three consecutive Fridays two of them experience the earth-moving effects of falling in love, while the third goes on a quest to find something she’s never experienced before: pleasure.
Cast: Aamu Milonoff, Eleonoora Kauhanen, Linnea Leino.
Klondike (Ukr-Tur)
Dir: Maryna Er Gorbach
The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia-Ukraine during the start of war. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after, they find themselves at the centre of an air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014.
Cast: Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin, Oleg Scherbina, Oleg Shevchuk, Artur Aramyan, Evgenij Efremov.
Leonor Will Never Die (Phil)
Dir: Martika Ramirez Escobar
Fiction and reality blur when Leonor, a retired filmmaker, falls into a coma after a television lands on her head, compelling her to become the action hero of her unfinished screenplay.
Cast: Sheila Francisco, Bong Cabrera, Rocky Salumbides, Anthony Falcon.
Marte Um (Mars One, Bra)
Dir: Gabriel Martins
In Brazil, a lower-middle-class Black family of four tries to keep their spirits up and their dreams going in the months that follow the election of a right-wing president, a man who represents everything they are not.
Cast: Rejane Faria, Carlos Francisco, Camilla Souza, Cícero Lucas.
DAY ONE
Utama (Bol-Uru-Fra)
Dir: Alejandro Loayza Grisi
In the Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living the same daily life for years. When an uncommon long drought threatens their entire way of life, Virginio and his wife Sisa face the dilemma of resisting or being defeated by the environment and time itself.
Cast: Jose Calcina, Luisa Quispe, Santos Choque.
You Won’t Be Alone (Australia)
Dir: Goran Stolevski
In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, a young feral witch accidentally kills a peasant. She assumes the peasant’s shape to see what life is like in her skin, igniting a deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Sara Klimoska.
WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Recent entries include Flee, Honeyland, Sea Of Shadows, Shirkers, This Is Home, Last Men In Aleppo and Hooligan Sparrow.
All That Breathes (Ind-UK)
Dir: Shaunak Sen
Against the darkening backdrop of Delhi’s apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protect one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the Black Kite.
Calendar Girls (Swe)
Dirs: Maria Loohufvud, Love Martinsen
A coming-of-golden-age look at Florida’s most dedicated dance team for women over 60, shaking up the outdated image of “the little old lady,” and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can.
A House Made Of Splinters (Den)
Dir: Simon Lereng Wilmont
In Eastern Ukraine, follow the daily life of children and staff in a special kind of home: an institution for children who have been removed from their homes while awaiting court custody decisions. Staff do their best to make the time children feel safe and supported.
Midwives (Myan)
Dir: Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
Two midwives work side-by-side in a makeshift clinic in Myanmar.
The Mission (Fin)
Dir: Tania Anderson
A revelation of the inner lives of young LDS missionaries, as they leave their homes for the first time and embark upon the most emotionally, physically and psychologically challenging period of their life.
Nothing Compares (Ire-UK)
Dir: Kathryn Ferguson
The story of Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and subsequent exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on Sinéad’s prophetic words and deeds from 1987 to 1993, the film reflects on the legacy of this fearless trailblazer through a contemporary feminist lens.
Sirens (Leb)
Dir: Rita Baghdadi
On the outskirts of Beirut, Lilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East’s first all-female metal band, wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars.
Tantura (Isr)
Dir: Alon Schwarz
In 1948, the State of Israel was established and civil war broke out. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed with their inhabitants killed or exiled. The film focuses on one village: Tantura, bringing to light Israel’s founding myth and its society’s inability to come to terms with its dark past.
DAY ONE
The Territory (Bra-Den-USA)
Dir: Alex Pritz
When a network of Brazilian farmers seizes a protected area of the Amazon rainforest, a young Indigenous leader and his mentor must fight back in defense of the land and an uncontacted group living deep within the forest.
We Met in Virtual Reality (UK)
Dir: Joe Hunting
Filmed entirely inside the world of VR, this vérité documentary captures the excitement and surprising intimacy of a burgeoning cultural movement, demonstrating the power of online connection in an isolated world.
NEXT
Bold works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling have brought some of the most acclaimed Sundance films in years likeThe Infiltrators, Searching, Skate Kitchen, A Ghost Story and Tangerine. NEXT is presented by Adobe.
The Cathedral (Ita-USA)
Dir: Ricky D’Ambrose
An only child’s account of an American family’s rise and fall over two decades.
Cast: Brian d’Arcy James, Monica Barbaro, Mark Zeisler, Geraldine Singer, William Bednar-Carter.
North American premiere
Every Day In Kaimukī (USA)
Dir: Alika Tengan
A young man is determined to give his life meaning outside of Kaimukī, the small Hawaiian town where he grew up, even if it means leaving everything he’s ever known and loved behind.
Cast: Naz Kawakami, Rina White, Holden Mandrial-Santos.
Framing Agnes (Can-USA)
Dir: Chase Joynt
After discovering case files from a 1950s gender clinic, a cast of transgender actors turn a talk show inside out to confront the legacy of a young trans woman forced to choose between honesty and access. Documentary.
A Love Song
Dir: Max Walker-Silverman
Two childhood sweethearts, now both widowed, share a night by a lake in the mountains. A love story for those who are alone.
Cast: Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, Benja K. Thomas, John Way, Marty Grace Dennis.
DAY ONE
Mija
Dir: Isabel Castro
Doris Muñoz is a young, ambitious music manager whose undocumented family depends on her ability to launch pop stars. When she loses her biggest client, Doris hustles to discover new talent and finds Jacks, another daughter of immigrants for whom “making it” isn’t just a dream: it’s a necessity. Documentary
Riotsville, USA
Dir: Sierra Pettengill
Welcome to Riotsville, a fictional town built by the US military. Using footage shot by the media and government, the film explores the militarisation of the police and the reaction of a nation to the uprisings of the late ’60s, creating a counter-narrative to a critical moment in American history. Documentary.
Something In The Dirt
Dirs: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
When neighbors John and Levi witness supernatural events in their Los Angeles apartment building, they realise documenting the paranormal could inject some fame and fortune into their wasted lives. An ever-deeper, darker rabbit hole, their friendship frays as they uncover the dangers of the phenomena, the city, and each other. Fiction.
Cast: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.
PREMIERES
A showcase of world premieres of some of the most highly anticipated fiction and non-fiction films of the coming year. Documentaries that have screened in Premieres include The Dissident, On The Record, and Miss Americana, and past fiction features include Kajillionaire, Promising Young Woman, The Report, Late Night, and The Big Sick.
2nd Chance
Dir: Ramin Bahrani
Bankrupt pizzeria owner Richard Davis invented the modern-day bulletproof vest. To prove that it worked, he shot himself 192 times. He launched a multi-million-dollar company and became a cult figure among police. Davis’ rise and fall reveals a man of contradictions and the nature of power and impunity in America. Documentary.
Am I OK?
Dirs: Stephanie Allynne, Tig Notaro
Lucy and Jane have been best friends for most of their lives and think they know everything there is to know about each other. But when Jane announces she’s moving to London, Lucy reveals a long-held secret. As Jane tries to help Lucy, their friendship is thrown into chaos.
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, Jermaine Fowler, Kiersey Clemons, Molly Gordon, Sean Hayes.
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
Dir: Nina Menkes
Based on Nina Menkes’ acclaimed talk ‘Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema’, a mesmerising journey into how shot design intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/ assault and employment discrimination against women. Containing over 175 film clips, this will unalterably change the way we view and make movies. Documentary.
Call Jane
Dir: Phyllis Nagy
Chicago, 1968: after having a life-saving secret abortion, a suburban housewife seeks to give women access to healthy and safe abortions through an underground collective of women known as “Jane.”
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith.
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
Dir: Rory Kennedy
An investigation of the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people, exploring both the root causes and the human cost. At once a chilling portrait of a crumbling corporate culture and a fierce indictment of Wall Street’s corrupting influence. Documentary.
Emily The Criminal
Dir: John Patton Ford
Down on her luck and saddled with debt, Emily gets involved in a credit card scam that pulls her into the criminal underworld of Los Angeles, ultimately leading to deadly consequences.
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon.
Final Cut (Fra)
Dir: Michel Hazanavicius
Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.
Cast: Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Grégory Gadebois, Finnegan Oldfield, Matilda Lutz, Raphaël Quenard.
God’s Country
Dir: Julian Higgins
When a grieving college professor confronts two hunters she catches trespassing on her property, she’s drawn into an escalating battle of wills with catastrophic consequences.
Cast: Thandiwe Newton, Jeremy Bobb, Joris Jarsky, Jefferson White, Kai Lennox, Tanaya Beatty.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (UK)
Dir: Sophie Hyde
Nancy Stokes, a retired school teacher, is yearning for some adventure, and some sex. Good sex. And she has a plan: she hires a young sex worker named Leo Grande.
Cast: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack.
Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul
Dir: Adamma Ebo
In the aftermath of a huge scandal, Trinitie Childs, the first lady of a prominent Southern Baptist megachurch, attempts to help her pastor husband, Lee-Curtis Childs, rebuild their congregation.
Cast: Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown.
jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
Dirs: Clarence “Coodie” Simmons, Chike Ozah
Kanye West in three acts. The story beyond the iconic music, an intimate and empathetic chronicle featuring never-before-seen footage from 21 years in the life of a captivating figure. Documentary.
La Guerra Civil (UK)
Dir: Eva Longoria Bastón
The epic rivalry between iconic boxers Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez in the 1990s sparked a cultural divide between Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans. A chronicle of a battle that was more than a boxing rivalry, and examines a fascinating slice of the Latino experience in the process. Documentary.
DAY ONE
Living (UK)
Dir: Oliver Hermanus
In 1952 London, veteran civil servant Williams has become a small cog in the bureaucracy of rebuilding England post-WWII. As endless paperwork piles up on his desk, he learns he has a fatal illness. Thus begins his quest to find some meaning in his life before it slips away.
Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke.
Lucy And Desi
Dir: Amy Poehler
Lucille Ball had an immense influence on the creation of TV syndication, as she rose to become a true entrepreneur and multi-faceted mogul. Through interviews and archival, a tribute to one of the greatest trailblazers in comedy and entertainment. Documentary.
SALT LAKE CITY OPENING NIGHT
My Old School (UK)
Dir: Jono McLeod
The astonishing true story of Scotland’s most notorious imposter. It’s 1993 and 16-year-old Brandon is the new kid in school. Soon he’s top of the class, acing exams and even taking the lead in the school musical. He’s the model pupil, until he’s unmasked…
Cast: Alan Cumming
The Princess (UK)
Dir: Ed Perkins
Princess Diana’s story is told exclusively through contemporaneous archive creating a bold and immersive narrative of her life and death. Turning the camera back on ourselves, it also illuminates the profound impact she had and how the public’s attitude to the monarchy was, and still is, shaped by these events.
DAY ONE
Resurrection
Dir: Andrew Semans
Margaret’s life is in order. She is capable, disciplined, and successful. Soon, her teenage daughter, who Margaret raised by herself, will be going off to a fine university, just as Margaret had intended. Everything is under control. That is, until David returns, carrying with him the horrors of Margaret’s past.
Cast: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman, Michael Esper, Angela Wong Carbone.
Sharp Stick
Dir: Lena Dunham
Sarah Jo is a naive 26-year-old living on the fringes of Hollywood with her mother (longing for money) and sister (longing for exposure). She just longs to be seen. When she begins an affair with her older employer, she is thrust into an education on sexuality, loss and power. Cast: Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Scott Speedman, Lena Dunham, Taylour Paige, Jennifer Jason Leigh.
To The End
Dir: Rachel Lears
Stopping the climate crisis is a question of political courage, and the clock is ticking. Over three years of turbulence and crisis, four remarkable young women of color fight for a Green New Deal, and ignite a historic shift in U.S. climate politics.
We Need To Talk About Cosby
Dir: W. Kamau Bell
Can you separate the art from the artist? Should you even try? While there are many people about whom we could ask those questions, none pose a tougher challenge than Bill Cosby.
When You Finish Saving The World
Dir: Jesse Eisenberg
Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other as Evelyn desperately tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, while Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.
Cast: Julianne Moore, Finn Wolfhard.
DAY ONE
MIDNIGHT
The renowned genre showcase has brought in recent years Hereditary, Mandy, Relic, Assassination Nation, and The Babadook.
Babysitter / Canada
Dir: Monia Chokri
After a sexist joke goes viral, Cédric loses his job and embarks on a therapeutic journey to free himself from sexism and misogyny. His girlfriend Nadine is exasperated by his narcissistic introspection, until they hire a mysterious and liberated babysitter to help shake things up.
Cast: Patrick Hivon, Monia Chokri, Nadia Tereszkiewcz, Steve Laplante, Hubert Proulx.
Fresh
Dir: Mimi Cave
The horrors of modern dating seen through one young woman’s defiant battle to survive her new boyfriend’s unusual appetites.
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi.
DAY ONE
Hatching (Fin)
Dir: Hanna Bergholm
While desperately trying to please her demanding mother, a young gymnast discovers a strange egg. She tucks it away and keeps it warm, but when it hatches, what emerges shocks everyone.
Cast: Jani Volanen, Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Saija Lentonen, Reino Nordin, Oiva Ollila.
Meet Me In The Bathroom (UK)
Dirs: Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace
An immersive journey through the New York music scene of the early 2000s. Set against the backdrop of 9/11, the film tells the story of how a new generation kickstarted a musical rebirth for New York City that reverberated around the world. Inspired by the book by Lizzy Goodman. Documentary.
Piggy (Spa)
Dir: Carlota Pereda
Sara deals with constant teasing from girls in her small town. But it comes to an end when a stranger kidnaps her tormentors. Sara knows more than she’s saying and must decide between speaking up and saving the girls or saying nothing to protect the strange man who spared her.
Cast: Laura Galán.
Speak No Evil (Den)
Dir: Christian Tafdrup
A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
Cast: Morten Burian, Sidsel Siem Koch, Fedja van Huêt, Karina Smulders, Liva Forsberg, Marius Damslev.
SPOTLIGHT
A tribute to the cinema that Sundance team has enjoyed throughout the past year. Films that have played in this category in recent years include The Biggest Little Farm, Birds Of Passage, The Rider, Ida, and The Lobster.
After Yang
Dir: Kogonada
In the near future, a father and daughter try to save the life of Yang, their beloved robotic family member.
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith. Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Haley Lu Richardson. North American Premiere. Fiction.
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.
Happening (Fra)
Dir: Audrey Diwan
France, 1963. Anne is a bright student with a promising future. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With final exams approaching and her belly growing, Anne resolves to act, even if she must risk prison to do so.
Cast: Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet-Klein, Luana Bajrami, Louise Chevillotte, Pio Marmai.
Neptune Frost (USA-Rwa)
Dirs: Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams
In an otherworldly e-waste dump camp, a subversive hacking collective attempts a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources — and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry.
Cast: Cheryl Isheja, Elvis Ngabo “Bobo”, Bertrand Ninteretse “Kaya Free”, Eliane Umuhire, Rebecca Muciyo, Trésor Niyongabo.
Three Minutes - A Lengthening (Neth)
Dir: Bianca Stigter
Three minutes of footage are the only moving images known of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk in Poland before the Holocaust. An examination of that film — in color, random, full of life — reveals historical and personal dimensions. Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter. Documentary.
The Worst Person In The World (Nor)
Dir: Joachim Trier, Screenwriter: Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier, Producer: Thomas Robsahm, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar) — Four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum.
DAY ONE
KIDS
Programmed in cooperation with Utah Film Center, which presents the annual Tumbleweeds Film Festival for children and youth. Films that have played in this category in recent years include The Elephant Queen, Science Fair, My Life As A Zucchini, The Eagle Huntress, and Shaun The Sheep.
Maika (Viet)
Dir: Ham Tran
After a meteor falls to earth, eight-year-old Hung meets an alien girl from the planet Maika, searching for her lost friend. As Hung helps her otherworldly friend search, the alien inadvertently helps Hung make new friends and heal a broken heart. But danger lurks everywhere…
Cast: Phu Truong, Diep Anh Tru, Tin Tin, Ngoc Tuong, Kim Nha.
Summering
Dir: James Ponsoldt
During their last days of summer and childhood — the weekend before middle school begins — four girls struggle with the harsh truths of growing up and embark on a mysterious adventure.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Featuring extended conversations following the screening.
LAST FLIGHT HOME
Dir: Ondi Timoner
An examination of Eli Timoner’s intentional death and his family’s emotional turmoil as they grapple with his decision to end his own life. The family journeys back through Eli’s remarkable, painful life to discover what true love looks like and help him shed shame he’s carried for forty years. World Premiere. Documentary.
FROM THE COLLECTION
Just Another Girl On The I.R.T.
Dir: Leslie Harris
A young Brooklyn woman, smart, witty, and confident, is not just another teenager on the NYC subway. Determined to make it out of her neighbourhood and become a doctor, she confronts adversity while navigating challenging waters to achieve her dreams and goals…
Cast: William Badget, Chequita Jackson, Ebony Jerido, Ariyan Johnson, Kevin Thigpen, Jerad Washington.
1993 Sundance Film Festival winner of the Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Achievement in a First Feature.
Digitally restored, and a new DCP created in collaboration between Sundance Institute, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and the Academy Film Archive branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
INDIE EPISODIC
Emerging creators of independently produced episodic content. follow in the footsteps of State Of The Union, Gentefied, Wu Tang Clan: Of Mics And Men and Quarter Life Poetry. The Indie Episodic Program is presented by DoorDash.
Bring On The Dancing Horses
Dir: Michael Polish
An assassin is out to complete her list of targets and exact her own brand of justice.
Cast: Kate Bosworth, Jasper Polish, Lance Henriksen, Happy Anderson, DJ Qualls, Thomas Francis Murphy.
Chiqui
Dir: Carlos Cardona
It’s 1987. Chiqui and Carlos immigrate from Colombia to the United States to find a better life for themselves and their unborn son. Upon their arrival, they quickly realise that the American dream is not as easy to achieve as they thought.
Cast: Brigitte Silva, Sebastián Beltranini, Catherine French, Gregg Prosser.
CULTURE BEAT
Dirs: Andre Hyland, Kitao Sakurai
A show that investigates high culture institutions through the lowbrow lens of various characters. The 2021 love child of Da Ali G Show and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.
Cast: Andre Hyland.
The Dark Heart (Swe)
Dir: Gustav Möller
Sweden: in a mythological landscape, search parties roam through forests of spruce, secret conversations are whispered in open fields, and verbal duels fought on narrow country roads. A story of family feuds, inheritances and forbidden love.
Cast: Aliette Opheim, Clara Christiansson Drake, Gustav Lindh, Peter Andersson.
Instant Life
Dirs: Mark Becker, Aaron Schock
Destitute without electricity and running water, Yolanda Signorelli Von Braunhut has lost control of her late husband Harold’s iconic Amazing Live Sea Monkeys novelty. Yet she alone knows their secret formula, and from her crumbling estate on the Potomac, Yolanda wages legal and existential battles to fully win them back. Documentary.
My Trip To Spain
Dir: Theda Hammel
Alexis, a successful trans woman, is heading to Spain to get some cosmetic surgery. She has asked her embittered old friend Charlie to housesit while she’s away. During the handoff, he tries his best to convince her to cancel, while simultaneously pursuing a sexual liaison with her brooding gardener Bruno.
Cast: John Early, Theda Hammel, Gordon Landenberger.
NEW FRONTIER
Immersive work, VR, AR, art installations and performance art combine under the New Frontier label.
32 Sounds
Lead artist: Sam Green
An immersive documentary and sensory film experience that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound and its power to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. The film will be presented in its “live cinema” form, featuring live music and live narration.
DAY ONE
Atua (NZ)
Lead artists: Tanu Gago, Jermaine Dean
Reimagining the realm of Pacific gods in this sculptural AR experience. Claiming space for gender diverse communities impacted by colonial contact, to see themselves reflected as vital to their cultural heritage and an intrinsic part of the cosmos.
Child Of Empire (UK)
Lead artists: Sparsh Ahuja, Erfan Saadati, Stephen Stephenson, Omi Zola Gupta
Experience the largest forced migration in human history, the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. Embody the childhood memories of two survivors, as they reflect on their journeys across a divided homeland.
Cosmogony (Swi)
Lead Artists: Gilles Jobin, Susana Panadés Diaz, Camilo de Martino, Tristan Siodlak
A live digital performance in which 3 dancers are motion captured in Geneva and projected remotely in real time.
North American premiere.
Diagnosia
Lead artists: Mengtai Zhang, Lemon Guo, Producers: Mengtai Zhang, Lemon Guo, Yue Huang
In this VR experience, the director locks us inside his teenage memories of being incarcerated in a military-operated internet addiction camp in Beijing in 2007, where internet addiction and other youth issues were treated as severe mental disorders, and sometimes by violent means.
North American premiere.
Flat Earth VR (Bra)
Lead artist: Lucas Rizzotto.
VR is known as the ultimate empathy machine that lets users experience others’ perspectives. But what happens when those perspectives are delusional? Experience the ultimate flat-earther fantasy: ascend into the stars and prove all globe-earthers wrong by taking photos of the planet as it truly is: flat like a pancake.
Gondwana (Australia)
Lead artists: Ben Joseph Andrews, Emma Roberts
A durational VR experience that runs over 24 hours, and a constantly-evolving virtual ecosystem chronicling the possible futures of the world’s oldest tropical rainforest, the Daintree. Powered by climate data, each showing is unrepeatable and speculative, a meditation on time, change and loss in an irreplaceable landscape.
On The Morning You Wake (To The End Of The World, UK)
Lead Artists: Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Arnaud Colinart, Pierre Zandrowicz
On a regular Saturday morning in January 2018, as Hawaiian citizens went about their daily routines, the entire state population received an SMS from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, which read: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Seven Grams (Fra)
Lead artist: Karim Ben Khelifa
An entirely new way for people to understand the human cost that went into producing their smartphones. This project brings the Democratic Republic of Congo’s tragic mining industry straight to the smartphone that its mineral resources helped make, via an app on both IOS and Android systems.
North American premiere.
Suga’- A Live Virtual Dance Performance
Lead artist: Valencia James
An immersive experience that features live dance performance as volumetric video in social virtual reality space. The performance weaves together movement, family stories, and cultural heritage to imagine virtual environments as a site for healing and reclamation of spaces that were historically filled with pain and injustice.
Surrogate
Lead artist: Lauren Lee McCarthy
How do we relate to the future while living in a world in crisis? Amidst climate change, inequity, and pandemic, it’s no longer possible to view ourselves as separate from past and future. How much control should we have over a birthing person’s body, and a life before it’s born? North American premiere.
The Inside World
Lead artists: Jennifer McCoy, Kevin McCoy
The city of Las Vegas is now operated by artificial intelligence. Fourteen AI “Managers” handle every sector of the city. The problem is, one of them is secretly human… Digital Art NFTs meet gameplay in this community driven mystery.
The State Of Global Peace
Lead artists: Daanish Masood Alavi
The prime minister of a fictitious country – played by you – is about to deliver a speech at a virtual UN General Assembly in the near future. A group of students hijacks the security system and takes over the screens, asking to have a dialogue.
They Dream In My Bones - Insemnopedy II (Fra)
Lead Artist: Faye Formisano
Immersed on virtual veils, this VR360 experience tells the story of Roderick Norman, a researcher in onirogenetics, the science he founded, which makes it possible to extract dreams from an unidentified skeleton at the frontier of gender and the human.
North American premiere.
This Is Not A Ceremony (Can)
Lead artist: Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon)
Darkly humorous and occasionally caustic, this cinematic VR experience offers insights into the struggles and conflicts of growing up an Indigenous man.
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