It’s that time of year. The time of year when Hollywood decamps to Park City, Utah, to bask in the thin mountain air and imbibe beer with a measly 3.2 percent alcohol content (Oh, Mormons!). Yes, the Sundance Film Festival—the biggest celebration of independent film on earth—is here, attracting some 50,000 attendees. Over the years, Robert Redford’s fest has introduced some of cinema's finest filmmakers to the world, including Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey), Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape), the Coen brothers (Blood Simple), the list goes on. Last year’s most critically acclaimed entry was Whiplash, and this year’s edition, which takes place January 22 – February 1, should offer plenty of award-worthy fare. Here are the most anticipated films of Sundance ’15.
Sundance Film Festival
Filmmaker Joe Swanberg, who discovered Greta Gerwig back in his mumblecore heyday, has found a comfortable groove working with seasoned actors. His relationship comedy Drinking Buddies featured career-best work from Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson, and last year’s Sundance entry Happy Christmas boasted an outstanding turn by Anna Kendrick as a hell-raising alcoholic sister. This flick centers on Tim (Johnson) and Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt), a young couple with a 3-year-old son who are struggling to adjust to life with a kid. One night, they let their respective freak flags fly, and are joined by an all-star cast including Kendrick, Orlando Bloom, Brie Larson, and the always brilliant Sam Rockwell.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
James Ponsoldt is one of the more unheralded young filmmakers in Hollywood, having helmed the impressive Sundance entries Smashed, featuring Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a couple coping with their mutual alcoholism, and The Spectacular Now, a heartrending coming of age drama starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. His latest effort is set in 1996 and, following the publication of his acclaimed novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) embarks on a 5-day interview with Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), revealing hidden truths. The film also stars Anna Chlumsky, Joan Cusack, and Mamie Gummer.
It goes without saying, but Alex Gibney is hands-down the most prolific documentary filmmaker working today. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Taxi to the Dark Side. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. The list goes on. Here, he tackles the mysterious Church of Scientology. Based on the bestselling book by Lawrence Wright, Gibney profiles 8 former Scientology members and investigates the religion’s strange history and string of alleged abuse accusations.
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Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick has earned a pair of Oscar nominations for his eye-opening films Twist of Faith, examining sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and The Invisible War, about the rape epidemic in the military. The Hunting Ground examines the problem of sexual abuse on college campuses—a flawed system where 1 in 5 women in college say they were sexually assaulted, yet many of these go unreported, or are lost in a web of bureaucracy. Dick’s doc follows several different rape survivors fighting back against powerful institutions, and should spark plenty of interest in the wake of the much-ballyhooed UVA rape story in Rolling Stone.
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Marking the feature directorial debut of Gus Van Sant apprentice Justin Kelly, and executive produced by Van Sant, this topical drama tells the story of Michael Glatze, played by James Franco—a popular gay-rights advocate who inspired a generation of gays with his films and writing. But, following a near-death experience, he turns to Christianity and publicly renounces his homosexuality. What led one of the gay rights movement’s fixtures to do such a thing? The film also stars Emma Roberts (in a Palo Alto reunion with Franco), and Zachary Quinto.
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Andrew Jarecki, who co-founded the website Moviefone, helmed the riveting Oscar-nominated 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans, as well as the underwhelming 2010 drama All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. His latest, which will premiere on HBO later this year, explores the bizarre history of Robert Durst, a multimillionaire heir to one of New York’s most esteemed billionaire real estate families, who has been accused of three murders, but was never convicted. The film features Durst’s first ever interviews about his alleged killings that baffled the authorities.
via HBO
Directed by Brett Morgen, who helmed the acclaimed Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture and the recent Rolling Stones doc Crossfire Hurricane, this film is the first fully authorized documentary of Nirvana legend Kurt Cobain, and is produced by his daughter, Frances Bean. The film reportedly features many never-before-seen home movies and music of Cobain’s, as well as eye-opening interviews with friends and family.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
He’s played a younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi and now, Ewan McGregor will portray… Jesus Christ. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, creator of HBO’s In Treatment, this drama reimagines Christ’s final hallucinatory days fasting in the desert, including his interactions with the Devil, who wishes to lead him astray. The film features cinematography by Oscar-winning DP Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman, Gravity), and also stars Tye Sheridan, Ciarin Hinds, and Ayelet Zurer.
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Acquired by indie distributor Fox Searchlight just prior to Sundance, the latest movie from celebrated filmmaker Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha), is about Tracy (newcomer Lola Kirke, sister of Girls’ Jemima Kirke), a lonely college freshman who’s new to New York. When she’s taken under the wing of her glamorous, soon-to-be stepsister Brooke (Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the screenplay), she discovers a wild side of New York City that she’d only dreamed of.
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This is one of two films at Sundance for talented comedienne Kristen Wiig, along with The Diary of a Teenage Girl. In filmmaker Sebastian Silva’s Nasty Baby, she plays the pal of a gay couple (Silva and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe) who they enlist to have their child through artificial insemination—thus altering the nature of their relationship forever.
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Louis Psihoyos’ 2009 documentary The Cove, about dolphin poaching in Japan, took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His follow-up, Racing Extinction, surveys activists, scientists, and inventors to shed light on mankind’s role in contributing to mass extinction, which will result in losing half the world’s species in the near future. Psihoyos uncovers the awful endangered species black market, as well as how our fossil fuel consumption is destroying the oceans.
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Last year, actor Michael Fassbender surprised Sundancers with his bizarre—yet gripping—turn as the gentle, papier-mâché head-sporting front man of an indie rock band in Frank. He’ll return with this, the feature directorial debut of John Maclean that traces the journey of a 16-year-old boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) across 19th century frontier America in search of the woman he loves. He’s joined by Silas (Fassbender), a mysterious drifter with a dark past.
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Directed by the filmmaking team of Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini, whose Harvey Pekar biopic American Splendor captured the hearts of Sundance film festivalgoers years back, this coming of age drama tells the story of Jude (Asa Butterfield), a teen who spends his days getting high with his best friend. In order to keep him out of trouble, his mother sends him to live in the East Village with his estranged father Les (Ethan Hawke), and the impressionable teen grows up fast in Downtown New York. The film also stars Emily Mortimer, Julianne Nicholson, Hailee Steinfeld, and Emile Hirsch.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Filmmaker Craig Zobel’s previous Sundance entry, Compliance, was not only one of the most controversial films of the year, but proved so unnerving that it sparked shouting matches between audience members following its premiere. His follow-up is a post-apocalyptic film where, following a disaster that’s wiped out most of the world, the three last known survivors (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, and Chris Pine) engage in a complicated love triangle.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
