2022 Sundance Film Festival Preview
Hi everyone! If you’ve been following along with our Instagram stories (@motionpicturemadness), you might have noticed that we’ve been starting to knock out some of the big Oscars contenders for the upcoming awards in a couple of months (and we’ve also been unrelatedly watching Succession). We’ve also decided to take on a new project: starting this Thursday, January 20th, and ending next Tuesday, January 25th, we will be “attending” the virtual Sundance Film Festival! So we’re going to be bringing you some thoughts on the eight movies we chose to watch, but first, we wanted to give you the lineup of movies we chose, so that’s what this post will detail.
Sundance has always sort of been a bucket list item for us, and although we did make it out to Utah last summer, it didn’t coincide with the film festival. Last year it was online and we missed it, so we wanted to make sure we checked it out this year. So many great movies have come through Sundance, including Whiplash, Boyhood, The Usual Suspects, Hereditary, The Farewell, Memento, Get Out, and a ton of others, so it’s definitely something we had on our radar. After talking with a few friends in order to weed through the 82 feature films (and countless short films, roundtables, and the like), we narrowed it down to eight movies that we’ll be checking out. Before we get to that, we’re going to list some of the ones that we were interested in but didn’t fit in our schedule, and I’ll provide a link to any available trailer too. Hope you’re interested in some of these and will check them out at some point and let us know how they are!
Honorable Mentions:
After Yang (directed by Kogonada)
Genre: Science-fiction drama
Starring: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Justin H. Min
Synopsis: In the near future, a father and daughter try to save the life of Yang, their beloved robotic family member.
Alice (directed by Krysten Ver Linden)
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Keke Palmer, Sinqua Walls, and Common
Synopsis: 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 tree line… it’s 1973. Inspired by true events.
Am I Ok? (directed by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne)
Genre: Drama
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, and Jermaine Fowler
Synopsis: 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 longheld secret. As Jane tries to help Lucy, their friendship is thrown into chaos.
Fire of Love (directed by Sara Dosa)
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: 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.
Living (directed by Oliver Hermanus)
Genre: Drama
Starring: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, and Alex Sharp
Synopsis: In 1952 London, veteran civil servant Williams has become a small cog in the bureaucracy of rebuilding England postWWII. 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.
Nothing Compares (directed by Kathryn Ferguson)
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: The story of Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame, and subsequent exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on O’Connor’s prophetic words and deeds from 1987 to 1993, the film reflects on the legacy of this fearless trailblazer, through a contemporary feminist lens.
Something in the Dirt (directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead)
Genre: Science-fiction horror
Starring: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Synopsis: When neighbors John and Levi witness supernatural events in their Los Angeles apartment building, they realize 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.
We Need To Talk About Cosby (directed by W. Kamau Bell)
Genre: Docuseries
Synopsis: 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 poses a tougher challenge than Bill Cosby.
You Won’t Be Alone (directed by Goran Stolevski)
Genre: Horror
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, and Alice Englert
Synopsis: In an isolated mountain village in 19thcentury 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.
Our Lineup:
Thursday, January 20: The Princess (directed by Ed Perkins)
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: 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 toward the monarchy was, and still is, shaped by these events.
Friday, January 21: Call Jane (directed by Phyllis Nagy)
Genre: Drama
Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Mara
Synopsis: 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.”
Saturday, January 22: The Worst Person in the World (directed by Joachim Trier)
Genre: Dark romantic comedy-drama
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielson Lie, and Herbert Nordrum
Synopsis: 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.
Saturday, January 22: When You Finish Saving the World (directed by Jesse Eisenberg)
Genre: Comedy-drama
Starring: Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard
Synopsis: Evelyn and her oblivious son, Ziggy, seek out replacements for each other. As Evelyn desperately tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.
Sunday, January 23: 892 (directed by Abi Damaris Corbin)
Genre: Thriller drama
Starring: John Boyega, Michael K. Williams, and Connie Britton
Synopsis: When Brian Brown-Easley’s disability check fails to materialize 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.”
Sunday, January 23: Master (directed by Mariama Diallo)
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, and Amber Gray
Synopsis: Three women strive to find their place at an elite New England university. As the insidious specter of racism haunts the campus in increasingly supernatural fashion, each fights to survive in this space of privilege
Monday, January 24: Resurrection (directed by Andrew Semans)
Genre: Thriller-horror-drama
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, and Grace Kaufman
Synopsis: Margaret’s life is in order. She is capable, disciplined, and successful. Soon, her teenage daughter, whom Margaret raised by herself, will be going off to a fine university, just as Margaret intended. Everything is under control. That is, until David returns, carrying with him the horrors of Margaret’s past.
Tuesday, January 25: Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. (directed by Adamma Ebo)
Genre: Comedy
Starring: Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown
Synopsis: 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.