Sundance Film Festival organisers have unveiled four Indie Episodic series including the first authorised work exploring the life of American musician Willie Nelson and new work from Xavier Dolan, as well as 64 short films.
Thom Zimny and Oren Moverman directed Willie Nelson And Family for Blackbird Presents and Sight Unseen and the documentary series chronicles the ups and downs of Nelson’s life. The festival will premiere two of five episodes.
The Indie Episodics line-up includes The Night Logan Woke Up from Xavier Dolan, the French Canadian filmmaker behind features like Mommy and I Killed My Mother. Dolan leads the cast in the story of a Quebec family who seek closure 30 years after an unspeakable event rocked their community.
Richie Mehta’s (international Emmy winner Delhi Crime) Poacher is an India-set drama based on actual events, while Israeli production Chansi follows a young woman who flees her conservative Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish bubble to pursue her fantasy of having sex with Israeli soldiers. Henry Winkler is among the cast. The four Indie Episodic projects were selected from 519 submissions.
The 64-strong shorts line-up is divided among four categories: US fiction, international fiction, animation, and non-fiction. Entries were culled from a record 10,981 submissions. Of those, 4,996 hailed from the US and 5,985 were international.
Selections include: Tara O’Callaghan’s Irish documentary Call Me Mommy about a middle-aged single mother and online sex worker; White Ant, Shalini Adnani’s UK-Indian tale of a termite infestation; Xenia Matthews’ OURIKA! (USA), in which a long-dead Senegalese girl enslaved by a French aristocrat returns to life; and French-Belgian animated relationship saga Inglorious Liaisons from Chloe Alliez and Violette Delvoye.
Sundance runs from January 19-29. Starting on January 24 all Indie Episodic projects and selected shorts will also screen online through the end of the festival.
The 2023 Indie Episodic Projects
All synopses provided by Sundance.
Chanshi (Isr)
Dirs. Mickey Triest, Aaron Geva
Chanshi is from a Jewish-Orthodox Brooklyn family. She uses the story of a friend’s wedding in Israel as a cover to escape her conservative bubble and fiance. Free to fulfil her forbidden fantasy of sleeping with Israeli soldiers, her trip triggers a past trauma threatening to ruin her adventures.
Cast: Aleeza Chanowitz, Henry Winkler, Caroline Aaron, Tomer Machloof, Marnina Schon, Lee Bader.
Available online.
The Night Logan Woke Up (Can-Fra)
Dir. Xavier Dolan
On a cold October night in 1991, an unspeakable event rocks a small town in Quebec, forever haunting a family who tries to hide their dark secret. Thirty years later these secrets buried deep in the past resurface, sending the family on an unstoppable pursuit of reconciliation.
Cast: Xavier Dolan, Patrick Hivon, Eric Bruneau, Julie Le Breton, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Anne Dorval.
International premiere.
Available online
Poacher (Ind-USA)
Dir. Richie Mehta
A group of Indian Forest Service officers, NGO workers, police constables and Good Samaritans risk their lives trying to track down the biggest elephant ivory poachers in the history of India and bring them to justice. Inspired by true events.
Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew, Dibyendu Bhattacharya. Available online.
Willie Nelson And Family (USA)
Dirs. Thom Zimny, Oren Moverman
The first authorized work exploring the extraordinary life of Willie Nelson traverses the personal and career ups, downs, and in-betweens of one of the world’s most beloved musicians, by turns spiritual, dramatic, and playful.
Two of five episodes available online.
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