The last Sundance Film Festival in Utah is drawing to a close this weekend.
The Park City gathering was a wistful farewell to the place Robert Redford’s brainchild has called home for over 40 years and launched so many careers. Although the festival isn’t ending — it will start anew in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027 — it did have many, from filmmakers to volunteers, feeling nostalgic about the change whether their Sundance story began in 2022 or 1992.
A Wednesday night anniversary screening of “Little Miss Sunshine,” still one of the festival’s biggest hits, was an especially emotional affair as filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and actors Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin, gathered once more, 20 years later, at the festival’s most famous and largest location, the Eccles Theater. Many in the audience had seen the movie and some had even been at the 2006 premiere. But a fair number were experiencing it for the first time and the response was rapturous.
“Who would have imagined that a singe film could deliver two electric nights at a Sundance Film Festival?” said festival director Eugene Hernandez.
It wasn’t all looking back, however. The festival’s program is first and foremost about discovery. First time feature filmmakers comprised about 40% of the slate. The programmers also wanted to do right by Park City.
“I feel like we achieved that based on what we’ve seen this week,” said Sundance programming director Kim Yutani. “The enthusiasm for the artists that we have now shared with the world is significant. It’s profound.”
ICE and politics seep in
The festival wasn’t a bubble to world events either. On the second night, a Florida Congressman was assaulted at a party by a man who told him he was going to get deported. ICE OUT pins were not an uncommon sight on major stars, like Natalie Portman, on the red carpet. And films like Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell’s “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist” (in theaters March 27) sparked conversations about the end of the world.
Memorable moments thanks to Charli xcx, Harry, Meghan and Billie Jean King
It also didn’t stop people from having a good time. There was an all-night DJ’d party for the Charli xcx movie “The Moment” (in theaters this weekend) which had some out dancing until well after 3 a.m. The Billie Jean King documentary “Give Me the Ball!” had the audience erupting into spontaneous applause. (Afterward, King hit tennis balls into the balcony). Rufus Wainwright and Norah Jones sang Marianne Faithfull songs after a screening of “Broken English.” And the documentary “Cookie Queens,” about Girl Scout Cookie season, was an audience favorite that also brought a surprise appearance by Prince Harry and Meghan, who executive produced.
Olivia Wilde’s big comeback
Charli xcx might have had Wilde beat in numbers with three films at the festival, but Wilde took the spotlight for sheer impact. She confidently carried Gregg Araki’s comedic, and erotic, thriller “I Want Your Sex,” as the provocative artist Erika Tracy, who initiates an affair with one of her interns (Cooper Hoffman), changing his life and views about sex in the process. But her bigger moment was “The Invite,” a sharp chamber dramedy about an unhappy and sexless San Francisco couple (Wilde and Seth Rogen) who invite their upstairs neighbors (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) over for dinner. Wilde directed the film, which quickly became a festival favorite, sparking a competitive, 72-hour bidding war. A24 emerged as the winner (reportedly in the range of $12 million) in the biggest acquisition of the festival so far.
A release date for “The Invite” has not yet been announced. “I Want Your Sex” has not yet been acquired for distribution.
The Channing Tatum drama everyone is talking about
One of the biggest hits was also one of the most challenging: “Josephine,” writer-director Beth De Araújo’s raw drama about an 8-year-old girl (Mason Reeves) whose life and sense of safety is upended after she witnesses a sexual assault in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Gemma Chan play the parents who are unsure how to help her navigate these new emotions and fears. It has not yet been acquired for distribution.
The queer horror breakout
Writer-director Adrian Chiarella’s midnight movie “Leviticus” was scooped up quickly by the indie label Neon (of “Parasite” and “Anora” fame) in a reported seven-figure deal. The Australian coming-of-age thriller is about two teenage boys (Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen) trapped in conversion therapy horror. A critic for IndieWire wrote that it played like an episode of “Heated Rivalry” crossed with the psychological horror “It Follows.” A release date has not yet been announced.
A documentary more than 50 years in the making
The footage that makes up the new documentary “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” was shot in 1972, when groundbreaking filmmaker William Greaves ( who died in 2014 ) brought together the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, poets, authors, librarians, photographers, critics and actors, to reflect on what it all meant, at a party at Duke Ellington’s home. His son David Greaves did camera work at the party and co-directed and finished the film, a striking and essential historical artifact (and a good, intellectually stimulating hang). It has not yet been acquired for distribution.
Other buzzy titles
John Turturro got an enthusiastic standing ovation for his performance in “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” a nostalgic crime thriller about a veteran pickpocket who steals from the wrong man, written and directed by Noah Segan.
There was lots of chatter about “Wicker,” a quirky fantasy about a sardonic fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who commissions a basket weaver to weave her a husband (Alexander Skarsgård), from filmmakers Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.
David Wain’s earnestly horny (and surprisingly gory) riff on “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” was a starry, easy crowd pleaser, with Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm and John Slattery. And Rinko Kikuchi got raves for her turn as a woman competing in the Tokyo ballroom scene in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty.”
All are still seeking distribution, but the end of the festival does not mean the end of those talks.
“There are many more deals happening,” Yutani said. “The fact that these films are going to have these robust lives after their Sundance premieres is exactly what we want for these films. For them to reach wider audiences is definitely the goal.”
