Park City, Utah, Jan. 18 (US): Randall Park made an agreement with himself a few years ago that he wouldn’t attend the Sundance Film Festival if he didn’t have a project there. But the “Fresh Off the Boat” star never imagined it would be his first time as a director rather than an actor.
Among the films debuting in competition at the festival that begins Thursday night in Park City, Utah, is an adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel about three young Asian Americans who find themselves in the Bay Area, which opens Thursday night in Park City, Utah.
“Sundance is the pinnacle for me,” Park said in a recent interview. “I still can’t believe we’re going.”
Park is just one of hundreds of filmmakers finalizing passion projects and staying in Park City this week, looking to get excited at the first in-person edition of the independent film festival in two years.
Festival-goers will see some unexpected star transformations, such as Jonathan Majors as an amateur bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams”, Emilia Clarke as a future father in “Pod Generation”, Daisy Ridley as a booth attendant in “Sometimes I Think of Death” and Anne Hathaway As a witch counselor, she works in a youth prison in 1960s Massachusetts on “Eileen”.
Also ripped from her leash, “Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor helmed the contemporary adult thriller “Fair Play” as an ambitious woman working in a high-stakes hedge fund with her boyfriend, played by Alden Ehrenreich. It will be her first-ever Sundance Film Festival and she’s especially excited because it features one of the best screenplays she’s ever read.
“It’s pretty polarizing,” Dynevor said. “I can’t wait to see how everyone responds to it.”
The list of more than 100 movies playing around the clock (8am to midnight) over 10 days is more varied than ever.
As always, there are intimate photos of famous faces, like Michael J Fox, Little Richard, Stephen Curry, Judy Blume, Indigo Girls and Brooke Shields.
Lana Wilson (Miss Americana) directed Shields’ long-awaited documentary Pretty Baby, in which Shields reflects on her experiences from model to teen star and beyond, including her complex relationship with her mother, Andre Agassi and time Tom. Cruz publicly criticized her for taking antidepressants.
“I kept coming back to this idea of agency and of her slowly gaining agency first over her mind, then over her career and then over her identity,” Wilson said.
If the past two years have proven anything, it’s that Sundance doesn’t need its scenic mountain setting to thrive. After all, it was the festival in the virtual version that hosted the premiere of “CODA,” which would become the first Sundance film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. “Summer of Soul,” another Sundance virtual screening, also won Best Documentary last year, and both will get in-person performances this year.
But even so, the independent film community from newcomers to veterans felt the lack of the real thing. There is, after all, a certain magic in seeing a new movie from Anonymous in the dead of winter at 7,000 feet wondering, as the lights go out in a cinema overflowing with puffer coats, if you might be among the first to see the next Ryan Coogler or Kelly Reichardt debut.
Eric Vig, founder and CEO of Picturestart, has joked that he’s been going to the festival for “a billion years.” It’s where he watched “Thirteen” and hired Catherine Hardwicke to direct “Twilight” and, years later, “Whiplash,” beginning a relationship with Damien Chazelle that would lead to “La La Land.” Sundance is also where he watched “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Little Miss Sunshine” for the first time, too, and others “feel iconic and have been a part of the cultural zeitgeist forever. That moment of discovery was at Sundance.”
This year, his company comes armed with a new comedy that could well enter Sundance Discoveries: “Theatre Camp,” an honest satire on the world of musical theater at a ramshackle New York summer camp (AdirondACTS). The film is a collaboration between longtime friends Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt, and Noah Galvin.
“I was inspired by the many groups of people who got together like Christopher Guest, The Groundlings, The Lonely Island, who made things with their friends,” said Gordon, who co-directs and stars. “We thought, let’s make something about a world we know so well and a world we love. Because we love it, we can make a lot of fun with it.”
Few films offer moody escapes, like William Oldroyd’s adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning “Eileen” starring Thomasin Mackenzie and Hathaway.
“It plays on a fantasy I had as a young woman, like, ‘Can I run away and be a different person,'” Meshfegh said. “I still kind of have it, especially in the cinema because we watch movies for escape and to be different people.”
There will be veteran independent filmmakers with new offerings too such as Ira Sachs (“Passages”) and Sebastián Silva (“Rotting in the Sun”). Director John Carney “Once Upon a Time” presents new musical with Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Flora and Son”), Nicole Holofcener reunites with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “You Hurt My Feelings” and Susannah Vogel adapts viral New Yorker story “Cat Person” With Emilia Jones and Nicholas Brown.
As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, some events and gatherings require testing and proof of vaccination. People like Luis Miranda Jr., with a documentary he helped produce, “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” plan to cover during the film’s celebration.
“We’re bringing real mariachi to Utah and we’re going to have a party with real mariachi music,” Miranda said excitedly.
The festival embraces a different kind of hybrid approach after the success of previous years. Starting January 24, five days later, many of the films will be available to watch online for people who have purchased the now sold-out package.
Some movies already have distributors in place but many don’t, and viewers are interested to know how those acquisitions play out. After several years of streaming services making big plays, the market may have plateaued. Broadcasting companies are more cautious and traditional studios have learned how to compete.
Producer Tommy Oliver, CEO and Founder of Confluential Films, is offering four films for sale at the festival: “Fancy Dance”, “Young. Wild. Free”, “To Live and Die and Live” and “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” . He also knows very well that Sundance is not just a place to celebrate and discover, but to connect as well.
His advice to any first-timer is simple: “Talk to everyone. Talk to the people who haven’t made things yet. Talk to the people who are grappling,” he said. “And be patient, for you will look in five or ten years, and they will have made ‘Fruitvale Station,’ and they will have made ‘Beale Street.'”
The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 19th through January 29th.