Indie Focus Sundance Special Edition: Park City Takeover!
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen, and welcome to a special Sundance getting-started edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
As our intrepid Sundance Film Festival reporting team makes its way to Park City, Utah, for the annual event, we are frankly so excited about everything that will be coming your way — stories, interviews, reviews, photos and videos — that we couldn’t wait to start sharing.
For all of the LA Times Sundance coverage, go to latimes.com/sundance. Sporting their finest winter looks will be Justin Chang, Amy Kaufman, Kenneth Turan, Jen Yamato, Steve Zeitchik (and me), along with photographer Jay Clendenin and videographer Myung Chun.
As the festival gets underway this year, it feels somehow more loaded with expectations than usual for a number of reasons. Last year the festival saw the premieres of “The Birth of a Nation,” “Manchester by The Sea,” “OJ: Made in America,” “Certain Women” and other films that continued to make waves all year long.
This year it seems as if all roads lead to Park City. The recent cultural conversation on Hollywood Values — including broader topics such as diversity, representation and inclusion and more specific ones like the importance of climate change — takes in many ideals long championed by the festival. And then there is simply the timing of this year’s festival, which overlaps with both the presidential inauguration and the announcement of Oscar nominations.
With all their bump and hustle — and at Sundance, the snow — I often like to joke that covering film festivals is full-contact.
Kenneth Turan wrote an official preview of the festival, spotlighting narrative titles like “Crown Heights,” “Walking Out,” “The Incredible Jessica James” and “Novitiate” alongside docs such as “Icarus,” “Step,” “In Loco Parentis” and “Long Strange Trip.”
An informal poll of the Sundance team also surfaced these titles as the ones we are excited to see:
From the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Alex Ross Perry’s “Golden Exits,” Brett Haley’s “The Hero,” Geremy Jasper’s “Patti Cake$” and Alexandre Moors’ “The Yellow Birds.”
From the U.S. Documentary Competition, Peter Nicks’ “The Force,” Brian Knappenberger’s “Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trails of a Free Press,” Yance Ford’s “Strong Island” and Shaul Schwarz’s “Trophy.”
From the Premieres, Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” Charlie McDowell’s “The Discovery” and Dee Rees’ “Mudbound.”
From the Documentary Premieres, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”
From the Midnight section, Alexandre O. Philippe’s “78/52.”
From the Next section, Janicza Bravo’s “Lemon.”
And that’s barely scratching the surface. You can also expect stories from Steve Zeitchik on the Yiddish-language drama “Menashe,” Amy Kaufman on the festival’s purposeful emphasis on films on climate change, Jen Yamato on how the festival is responding to the inauguration and the women’s protest planned for Saturday, and I’ll be writing about “To the Bone,” the feature directing debut from longtime television writer and producer Marti Noxon.
We’ll be back with our regular weekend newsletter in a few days. Here’s hoping you all enjoy the coverage while staying warmer and better rested than we will. The things we do for cinema!
Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.
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