The 2022 Sundance Film Festival: London today added new films and events including a new podcast strand with live audiences, including Girls on Film and Evolution of Horror; a 25th-anniversary screening of Love Jones, a special screening of Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave; and a screening of Janicza Bravo’s Lemon chosen by keynote speaker, producer Christine Vachon.
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Seven films from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, paired with three energizing musical performances will screen at the upcoming Sundance NEXT FEST. The fest lights up Los Angeles August 10-13 at The Theatre at Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, and this year will include presentation of the Institute’s Vanguard Awards to Quentin Tarantino and Dee Rees.
The festival’s NEXT FEST After Dark program on Thursday, August 10, will feature a 25th anniversary screening of Reservoir Dogs on restored 35mm and presentation of the Institute’s Vanguard Leadership Award to Quentin Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs debuted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival following Tarantino’s participation in the Institute’s Directors Lab and returned to its roots with a From the Collection screening at this year’s Festival.
Sundance NEXT FEST continues on Friday with the LA premiere of absurd comedy Lemon directed by Janicza Bravo, with a performance by powerhouse vocalist Lizzo. Saturday’s lineup includes: Sundance NEXT FEST’s first-ever episodic selection — a special screening of seven episodes of the comedic drama Gente-fied, created by Marvin Lemus; the 2017 Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award: NEXT-winner Gook; and Bitch, starring Jason Ritter and Jaime King, paired with a performance by Sleigh Bells who just released their fourth LP, Jessica Rabbit. Sunday’s events include: the Los Angeles premieres of Dina, a documentary about an unconventional love story that took home the Grand Jury Prize in Park City; Alex Ross Perry’s latest film Golden Exits; and Michelle Morgan’s witty love letter to the city of angels, LA Times, accompanied by a live performance by LA-based duo Electric Guest, the band behind the hit “Dear to Me.” Additional program elements for the daytime screenings, including live Q&As with movie icons, will be announced.
Sundance alum Dee Rees, writer and director of Pariah, Bessie and Mudbound, will receive the Vanguard Award at Sundance NEXT FEST, celebrating an emerging artist with creative independence. Rees is an alumna of Sundance Screenwriters, Creative Producing and Directors Labs. She has been the recipient of Sundance Institute’s Time Warner Fellowship and Annenberg Film Fellowship and premiered two feature films at the Sundance Film Festival, Pariah in 2011 and Mudbound in 2017. The Vanguard Award includes a cash grant and mentorship from industry professionals and Institute staff. Rees will be the sixth recipient of this award; past recipients include Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) and Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station). The Vanguard Award was founded in 2011 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and its founding director, Michelle Satter.
Thursday, August 10
7:30 p.m. – Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino) — They were perfect strangers, assembled to pull off the perfect crime. Then their simple robbery explodes into a bloody ambush and the ruthless killers realize one of them is a police informant. But which one? This 25th anniversary screening will be presented on a 35mm print. Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen. 25th ANNIVERSARY
Friday, August 11
8:00 p.m. – Lemon + Lizzo
Lemon / U.S.A. (Director: Janicza Bravo, Screenwriters: Janicza Bravo, Brett Gelman) — Lemon: a person or thing that proves defective, imperfect, or unsatisfactory. A man whose blind girlfriend is leaving him, whose career is going nowhere and whose family is disappointed in him—Isaac Lachmann is 40. He doesn’t know how he got there. Things were supposed to work out differently. Cast: Brett Gelman, Judy Greer, Michael Cera, Nia Long, Shiri Appleby, Fred Melamed. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
Lizzo wields the kind of voice that’s right at home in soul, pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock and gospel. The vivacious and versatile vocalist’s impassioned delivery and dynamic range bonds the six tracks on her major label debut EP, Coconut Oil (Nice Life Recording Company/Atlantic Records). Lauded by Noisey, Entertainment Weekly, Paste, Rolling Stone, Spin, Idolator, and more, the EP boasted the hit “Good As Hell,” which was featured on the Original Soundtrack to Barbershop: The Next Cut and churned out over 7.3 million Spotify streams and 1.3 million YouTube views in less than six months.
Saturday, August 12
12:00 p.m. – Gente-fied
Gente-fied / U.S.A. (Director, creator and co-writer: Marvin Lemus, Co-writer: Linda Yvette Chavez, Executive Producers: Charles D. King, Aaliyah Williams, America Ferrera) — Seven characters deal with the effects of change in L.A.’s Boyle Heights. Bicultural millennials and old-school business owners hustle to create spaces that celebrate their Latino identities—even while faced with rent hikes, a housing crisis, and a steady stream of outsiders threatening to gentrify their barrio. NEXT FEST will screen all seven episodes of this short-form episodic series. Cast: Edsson Morales, Alicia Sixtos, Victoria Ortiz, Yareli Arizmendi, Salvador Velez Jr, Rafael Sigler, Art Bonilla. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
4:00 p.m. – Gook
Gook / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Justin Chon) — Eli and Daniel—Korean American brothers who run a shoe store in Paramount, California—form an unlikely friendship with Kamilla, an 11-year-old African American girl. As Daniel dreams of becoming a recording artist and Eli struggles to keep the store afloat, LA’s racial tensions erupt during the infamous 1992 riots. Cast: Justin Chon, Simone Baker, David So, Curtiss Cook Jr., Sang Chon, Ben Munoz. Winner of the Audience Award: NEXT at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
8:00 p.m. – Bitch + Sleigh Bells
Bitch / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Marianna Palka) — A woman snaps under crushing life pressures and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog. Her philandering, absentee husband is forced to become reacquainted with his four children and sister-in-law as they attempt to keep the family together during this bizarre crisis. Cast: Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Marianna Palka, Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
Sleigh Bells wasted no time after getting off the ground in 2009, releasing three blistering records in four years. Ready for a break from the road, they took their time on their fourth LP, Jessica Rabbit, writing and finishing the record several times only to realize that they wanted to push themselves and the music further. The result is an intense and vulnerable record that’s highly evolved and completely uncategorizable, a major statement from a band wholly committed to advancing their dynamic, uncompromising vision. Jessica Rabbit is the first release on the band’s own record label, Torn Clean.
Sunday, August 13
12:00 p.m. – Dina
Dina / U.S.A. (Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini) — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE. Winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
4:00 p.m. – Golden Exits
Golden Exits / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Alex Ross Perry) — The arrival of a young foreign girl disrupts the lives and emotional balances of two Brooklyn families. Cast: Emily Browning, Adam Horovitz, Mary-Louise Parker, Lily Rabe, Jason Schwartzman, Chloë Sevigny. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
8:00 p.m. – L.A. Times + Electric Guest
L.A. Times / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Michelle Morgan) — In this classically styled comedy of manners set in Los Angeles, sophisticated thirtysomethings try to determine whether ideal happiness exists in coupledom or if the perfectly suited couple is actually just an urban myth. Cast: Michelle Morgan, Dree Hemingway, Jorma Taccone, Kentucker Audley, Margarita Levieva, Adam Shapiro. LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
Electric Guest – L.A.-based duo Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton – recently released Plural on Downtown/Interscope Records. The record finds the duo at the absolute top of their game, infusing their version of electronic r&b with an even more confident, adventurous spirit than their 2012 debut album, Mondo, displayed, which Rolling Stone called “a Beck-ian journey into L.A. slacker soul, full of hooky neon jams.” MTV named Electric Guest an Artist To Watch, NME tagged them as a Band Of The Week, and they made the rounds at festivals in addition to taking late night TV by storm with performances on Letterman, Fallon, Conan and more.
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The 10th Las Vegas Film Festival kicks off on Tuesday, June 6 with “Lemon,” which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
In Lemon, Isaac Lachmann has seen better days. His acting career is tanking, while his colleagues succeed; his blind girlfriend of 10 years plans to leave him; and his own family singles him out as a constant disappointment at their latest reunion. Even as he takes a chance on new romance, Isaac struggles to define his place in a world that has seemingly turned against him. Director Janicza Bravo’s (the 2014 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Jury Award winner for “Gregory Go Boom”) description-defying debut feature promises to delight and unsettle audiences in equal measure with its unique brand of discomforting humor. Bravo unflinchingly strips down her stellar lead and co-writer, Brett Gelman, to appalling levels of vulnerability, emphasized by idiosyncratic supporting turns from Michael Cera, Judy Greer, Nia Long, Martin Starr and Gillian Jacobs. Bursting with meticulous unease and loving contempt, Bravo questions what it means to truly unravel.
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Jenny Slate and Abby Quinn appear in Landline by Gillian Robespierre[/caption]
Closing out the Festival on Sunday, June 11 is another Sundance Film Festival 2017 premiere, “Landline,” starting Jenny Slate, John Turturro, Edie Falco, Abby Quinn, Jay Duplass and Finn Wittrock. The Manhattan of 1995: a land without cell phones, but abundant in CD listening stations, bar smoke, and family dysfunction. Enter the Jacobs. Eldest daughter Dana’s looming marriage to straight-laced Ben prompts a willful dive into her wild side, while her younger sister, Ali, is still in high school but leads a covert life of sex, drugs, and clubbing. After discovering love letters penned by their father, the sisters try to expose his apparent affair while keeping it from their all-too-composed mother. Director Gillian Robespierre’s follow-up to “Obvious Child” reprises her talent for subversive comedy and explores how family bonds grow sturdier through lying, cheating, and strife. Compelled by the emotional snarl of people’s poor choices, “Landline” relishes in the dark humor of life’s low points while basking in ’90s nostalgia. An honest, observant portrait of sibling rivalry stumbling awkwardly toward friendship, and of children realizing that parents are people too, there’s no attempt at concealing the indulgences and insecurities of its characters—all of which make them endearing and human.
The 7th Milwaukee Film Festival announced its 2015 Jury Award Winners on Sunday, with awards given out in both the Competition and Cream City Cinema programs. No One’s Child directed by Vuk Ršumović is the winner of the Herzfeld Competition Award. No One’s Child, based on a remarkable true story, takes us deep into the mountains of Bosnia, where we’re introduced to a feral child living among the wolves. Upon his discovery in 1988, he is sent to a Belgrade orphanage. There, he struggles to relate to his peers until a friendship allows him to embrace humanity, only for the Balkan War to put pressure on his caretakers to return him to his homeland.
Lemon directed by John Roberts is the winner of the Cream City Cinema, this is the second win for John Roberts, who also won the award in 2009. In Lemon, a girl saves money to buy a bicycle, but is swindled by an old man.
The Look of Silence directed by Joshua Oppenheimer is the winner of the Documentary Jury Award. A critically acclaimed companion piece to the breathtaking look into the heart of darkness that was THE ACT OF KILLING (the sensation of MFF2013), THE LOOK OF SILENCE approaches the 1960s Indonesian genocide not from the perspective of its perpetrators but the survivors.
Brico Forward Fund top honors were awarded for continued production of a feature documentary based on local filmmaker Erik Ljung’s Mothers For Justice, a short film included in the 2015 Cream City Cinema’s Milwaukee Show II. Mothers for Justice follows Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton who was shot by a police officer in 2014 in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park. In 2015, Maria Hamilton founded the organization Mothers for Justice dedicated to uniting mothers who have lost children in police related deaths and demanding further investigation and accountability from law enforcement.
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL JURY AWARDS
Abele Catalyst Award Donna and Donald Baumgartner
Herzfeld Competition Award ($10,000 cash) No One’s Child (dir. Vuk Ršumović)
Cream City Cinema ($5,000 cash) Lemon (dir. John Roberts)
Cream City Cinema Special Jury Prize The Sound Man (dir. Chip Duncan)
Documentary Jury Award ($5,000 cash) The Look of Silence (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer) Shorter Is Better Award ($1,000 cash) Giovanni and the Water Ballet (dir. Astrid Bussink)Shorter Is Better Special Jury Prizes We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (dir. Konstantin Bronzit) De Smet (dirs. Thomas Baerten, Wim Geudens)
Kids Choice Short Film Award ($1,000 cash) A Place in the Middle (dirs. Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson) Kids Choice Special Jury PrizesPapa (dir. Natalie Labarre) Johnny Express (dir. James Woo)
Pitch Us Your Doc! Contest Winner (initially announced October 3) Wingman Dad (Elizabeth Ridley)
Brico Forward Fund Winners Mothers for Justice (working title) (Erik Ljung) $25,000 cash and $10,000 from Independent After her black, unarmed, schizophrenic son, Dontre, is shot 14 times and killed by a Milwaukee Police Officer in a popular downtown park, Maria Hamilton attempts to rally grieving mothers from across the country to join her in a Million Moms March on Washington D.C. The Night Country (Oliver Franklin Anderson) $10,000 cash, $15,000 from North American Camera, $15,000 from the Electric Sun Company and $10,000 from RDI StagesSmoke from an industrial fire brings the residents of a small Midwestern town into communion with spirits preying on their fears and desires on a stormy summer night.
When Claude Got Shot (Brad Lichtenstein) $10,000 cash, $6,000 from RDI Stages, $5,000 from the Electric Sun Company, $5,000 from Independent When Claude Got Shot’s story of three strangers brought together by gun violence humanizes and disrupts the narrative about so-called “black on black” crime in America. Never Home (working title) (Pang Yang Her) $5,000 from Independent Why do cities continue to struggle in treating those with Sexual Assault within minority communities? Through the journey of Joua Yang, a Hmong American women sexually assaulted at the age of nine, Never Home examines a survivor’s strength to both unravel cultural confusion and use her story to help other heals from their past. Just Eat (Laura Dyan Kezman) $5,000 from North American Camera Just Eat opens up the guarded world of the estimated 30 million people affected by eating disorders in our country. We follow the stories of prominent researchers, grieving parents fighting for recognition, and the diagnosed sufferers, crying out for help. Lunar Man (Kyle V. James) $5,000 cash for script development After stealing a time-travel suit on a desert planet, a lawless miner must seek help from a beautiful young hunter to help him escape from a dangerous group of bandits called The Sharks.