Certain Women
Beloved indie auteur Kelly Reichardt reunites with her Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy muse Michelle Williams for one of the starriest films playing at this year’s festival. On top of Williams, the Montana-set drama also features Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern, for an ensemble-driven story based on short stories by Maile Meloy. A restoration of her first feature River of Grass (1994) will also be shown at the festival.
Christine
Antonio Campos was last at Sundance with his 2012 bleak thriller Simon Killer. His latest, Christine, looks to be no lighter in tone. Rebecca Hall stars as Christine Chubbuck, the troubled television news reporter who shocked the world in 1974 after committing suicide during a live television broadcast. Simon Killer got inside the mind of a deeply disturbed murderer; with Christine, Campos is sure to take a similar approach by digging deep into what made Chubbuck tick. (Campos' first film
afterschool debuting Ezra Miller was reviewed on Filmleaf in the 2008 NYFF.)
Complete Unknown
Joshua Marston last won at Sundance with his 2004 drug trafficking drama Maria Full of Grace, which received an Oscar nomination for its lead actor, Catalina Sandino Moreno. Following his strong sophomore outing The Forgiveness of Blood he’s back with Complete Unknown, a high profile step up for the film-maker that sees him work with Michael Shannon and Rachel Weisz for an intriguing character study about “the perils and pleasures of self-reinvention”, according to the festival.
Dark Night
Tim Sutton’s drama tackles some of the most controversial subject matter of the festival with a look at what happened after James Holmes’ attack at a Colorado cinema that left 12 people dead. Comparisons with Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (which focused on the Columbine killers) are already being batted away with Sutton, who impressed with Memphis last year, bringing his lyrical style to the Next section.
Indignation
Oscar-nominated producer James Schamus has cultivated a remarkable career, largely thanks to his collaborative history with director Ang Lee, with whom he worked with on The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain and many others. Eyes are on him to deliver a solid outing with his directorial debut Indignation, which sees the first-time director tackle a complex story about a man who escapes the Korean war draft in 1951, only to find himself at odds with the morals of the Christian school where he ends up. Heartthrob Logan Lerman and A Dangerous Method’s Sarah Gadon star.
Kate Plays Christine
The second film to tackle the tragic life of Chubbuk takes a very different approach, by going at the story using the documentary format, with indie darling Kate Lyn Sheil (Sun Don’t Shine) playing herself as she prepares to play the late reporter on screen. Director Robert Greene explored similar terrain with Actress, his 2014 meta documentary that also blurred the lines between reality and performance. Kate Plays Christine is among the most enticing documentaries playing at Sundance, because it promises to be unlike anything else screening at the festival.
Kiki
A year after hosting a 25th anniversary screening of Paris Is Burning, the trailblazing LGBT documentary that beat Madonna to introduce voguing to the world, Sundance world premieres Kiki, a new film that also examines the birth of the dance style and its enduring power. To offer a full portrait, Swedish film-maker Sara Jordenö follows the daily lives of a group of LGBTQ youth of colour who comprise the “Kiki” scene as they prepare for and perform at at Kiki balls in New York City. If Jordenö’s film manages to capture the same lightning in a bottle that Paris Is Burning did back in 1990, we’re in for something special.
Little Men
Director Ira Sachs has had a great run of late at Sundance: two years ago, he brought his extremely moving study of old love, Love Is Strange, to Park City, shortly after winning great acclaim for his sexy gay drama, Keep the Lights On, two years prior. Little Men looks to be a shift for the film-maker as it centers on a teenager’s coming of age in Brooklyn. It’s also said to be a timely study of the dangers of gentrification.
Lo and Behold
Werner Herzog turns his attention to the internet with his latest documentary, which is an exploration of the web’s potential for good and evil. Told through archived interviews and various internet outsiders, Herzog will tackle everything from online harassment to situations that threaten the internet’s very existence.
Love & Friendship
Whit Stillman’s adaption of Jane Austen’s unpublished early novella Lady Susan sees Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny in leading roles as a plot featuring dalliances, love rivals and salacious rumours plays out. Beckinsale is in the titular role playing a predatory character who has been described as “not so much a coquette as a cougar”. Oh, and Stephen Fry is in it.
Lovesong
For Ellen director So Yong Kim’s road trip drama stars Jena Malone and Rosanna Arquette, as Kim weaves a tale of unhappy marriage, friendship, separation and a potentially explosive reunion just before a wedding. Also featuring Riley Keough, Brooklyn Decker, Amy Seimetz and Ryan Eggold, Lovesong has potential for Kim to take another leap forward as she did when she got the best out of Paul Dano in For Ellen.
Manchester By the Sea
It took six years for Kenneth Lonergan’s ecstatically received
Margaret to find its way to cinemas following a raft of creative and legal issues. Hopefully that same fate won’t befall his latest family drama, which world premieres at the festival. Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler, the new film from the You Can Count On Me film-maker follows a plumber whose family secrets begin to haunt him shortly when he returns home. [Justin Chang's review for
VARIETY was enthusiastic.]
Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
Spike Lee’s documentaries often focus on times of seismic change for African Americans, whether that’s racial tensions boiling over into almost unthinkable violence (4 Little Girls) or a natural disaster showing the huge divisions in American society (When the Levees Broke). Here he picks a moment that changed pop music forever: the release of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. All-star talking heads such as (no pun intended) David Byrne, Questlove, as well as Lee himself and the Jackson family explain why it was the album that changed Jackson’s career and created the blueprint for modern chart music.
Sophie and the Rising Sun
Julianne Nicholson was a major standout among her all-male cast in last year’s Black Mass, and she managed to hold her own opposite Meryl Streep in August: Osage Country, so we’re especially keen to finally see her lead her own vehicle in Sophie and the Rising Sun. The period drama sees her play a small-town southern spinster who irks her community after taking a liking to a new Japanese American resident.
Southside With You
Richard Tanne’s presidential date movie has had more attention than most of the Sundance offerings. The romantic dramedy retells the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama, who went to the Art Institute of Chicago, had some ice cream and saw Do the Right Thing on one evening in 1989. It looks unlikely to be hard-hitting enough to replicate the success that Precious or Fruitvale Station had at Sundance.
The Birth of a Nation
Ostensibly a biopic about Nat Turner, a preacher and slave who led the deadliest and most successful slave rebellion ever seen in the US, The Birth of a Nation is one of this year’s buzziest offerings. Directed by Beyond the Lights star Nate Parker, who has been mentored by Denzel Washington, he also stars in the film as Turner.
The Land
The title of this Nas-backed drama is a reference to Cleveland, the city in which it’s based. It’s a coming-of-age tale about a group of young men who try to make it out of the city by becoming skateboard pros but are sidetracked by their dealings with a local drug dealer. Erykah Badu stars.
Under the Gun
America’s gun violence epidemic is put under the microscope by Stephanie Soechtig, who tries to unpack the partisan, highly charged rhetoric and argument on both sides of the debate. Its producers think it can spark some positive rational conversation; realists point out those are not qualities often associated with the subject.
Weiner Dog
What would Sundance be without a new film starring Greta Gerwig? In the latest from writer/director Todd Solondz (Happiness), Gerwig is joined by a formidable ensemble that includes Julie Delpy, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet and Tracy Letts. The film is billed as a loose follow-up to Solondz’s cult teen comedy, Welcome to the Dollhouse, with several characters from that film returning.
White Girl
Directed by New York-based Elizabeth Wood, White Girl is a story set in the city which sees the titular white girl Morgan Saylor attempt to get her boyfriend out of trouble with the law. She told Variety that: “My goal isn’t to shock, it’s to be real and authentic. Which can sometimes be shocking.” So expectations are that this will indeed be shocking.
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