Sundance 2024 Film Festival Coverage

I was told not many Virtual Sundance Press Passes would be granted this year. That I could be approved if I came in person. But miracles of miracles, I was one of the lucky few to get Virtual access for Sundance 2024. I do hope to attend Sundance in person again, one day. The first and last time was Sundance Film Festival 2020 Coverage January 22-27. It was exciting! But I would hope the next time to be there representing a film, not running around trying to make my way to various venues, waiting in long lines to see 4 and 5 films a day and doing red carpet interviews and such. It was exhausting!

I watched 13 – 2024 Sundance Online Screenings. Of course, I always think I’m going to be able to get up really early and go to bed really late to fit in all I intended to see, but… One thing that was an improvement, none of the films (pre-ticketed) expired until midnight on 1/28. But in exchange for that, the total number of days to screen films went from 10 days to 5 days. In terms of film themes, where 2023 seemed to be a lot of sex. 2024 was a lot of AI and death. As always, I look forward to the music bio docs, but this year, I was elated to see one of my all time favorite singers, Luther Vandross be given tribute…

LUTHER: NEVER TOO MUCH | Filmmaker Dawn Porter | Documentary

When I look at the covers of these albums I get a good, warm feeling in my heart. These were the songs I grew up on. My sister, LeVonne and I were Luther nutz! Seeing him in concert every time he stepped foot into Philly. We started being fans around the ages of 12 and 14. Even as a kid I realized my musical taste was rather mature, we loved the same artists Luther loved – Roberta Flack, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Aretha. There’s nothing throwaway or bubble gum pop with these artists, and Luther had that same ability to create lasting, timeless music. As big a fan as I was/am, I can’t say I really knew much about his personal life. I mean it was always a question as to his being gay or straight, which is addressed in the doc. Philly’s own, Patti outs him, but his closest friends and collaborators, who he’d known since high school: Fonzi Thornton, Robin Clark, Carlos Alomar continue to respect his privacy on the matter. If he was gay, and most-likely he was, it’s even sadder that he didn’t live long enough to say F*ck it! I’m me and I love who I love. But I do understand that his main concern was how his mother would react. I feel like over half of my life decisions were based on what I thought my mother would say if I did this or that. Giving undo deference to a parent can keep you hovering low to the ground.

There’s plenty of performance clips, including when the NAACP Honored Dionne, and Luther serenaded her but good with “A House is Not A Home”. Niles Rodgers is interviewed, of course, is there a music doc that doesn’t call upon him to be a talking head? Another usual suspect is Music Journalist Danyel Smith, she’s funny when she talks about the difference between Motown and the Sound of Philly – “Motown is formality – we’re matching and in by midnight vs. Sound of Philly is come as you are and scream a bit”. Jamie Foxx is a producer of the film and provides his Luther vocal impressions. Jon Platt Chairman/CEO, Sony Music Publishing is interviewed along with Clive Davis and Mariah Carey.

How did I not know that Luther Vandross wrote “Can You See A Brand New Day” from The Wiz, what!?! And I either forgot or never knew about the devastating car accident that killed one of his close friends, which he pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and just barely avoided prison time. That seemed truly a breaking point in his life, triggering the returning weight, as he always admitted to being an emotional eater. As would be expected, a good bit of the doc covers the struggles he had with yoyoing weight and diabetes. It’s hard to think of him without the thoughts of fat Luther vs. thin Luther? But Porter’s overall theme is to capture his musical talent and the career goals he met before leaving us all too soon.

This part is not in the doc. but I found out the Luther Vandross Foundation, which provides financial assistance to students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), is managed by The Philadelphia Foundation!

A REAL PAIN | Writer/Director Jesse Eisenberg | Searchlight Pictures

In Poland, they’re a part of a tour that will start in Warsaw before continuing on to the Majdanek Concentration Camp, before the cousins split from the group to visit their grandmother’s home. While the tour is meant for Jewish Americans, the guide is a British man named James (Will Sharpe) who is neither. Joining David and Benji here are middle aged divorcee Marcia (Jennifer Grey), retired couple Diane (Liza Sadovy) and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), as well as Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), who converted after fleeing genocide in Rwanda. While David struggles to connect, Benji does with ease. However, his behavior is also erratic, with cracks showing in the cool facade that suggest some very real trauma…. READ MORE by Joey Magidson, awardsradar.com

What Did I (LeAnne) Think? – Having Benji (Kieran Culkin) play large while all the other beats are small and grounded gives this film good balance. But I enjoyed Eisenberg’s debut feature at Sundance2022 WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD a bit more.

LITTLE DEATH | Writer/Director Jack Bergert | Comedy/Drama

“A native of Miami, Florida, Begert partnered with friends to launch the production company Psycho Films, focused on “zero-budget music videos,” after attending USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, breaking out with his stunning videos for everyone from Doja Cat and Jack Harlow to Olivia Rodrigo. In his only interview ahead of Little Death‘s premiere, Producer Darren Aronofsky joined the rising filmmaker to discuss the work that went into creating what Begert calls a “hyper postmodern whirlwind.”

DEADLINE: Jack, I know Little Death is based on a short film of yours from 2019. But what inspired the story?

JACK BEGERT: It started as an idea for a structural experiment. I was watching movies like Slacker and a few others that really inspired me to break those rules, formally, and I wanted to do a short first because I wasn’t sure that the concept for the structure of the movie would even work. I’m really glad that we did because I learned a lot, but it kind of proved that it could still be an entertaining and compelling movie, even while taking a couple left turns… READ MORE by Matt Grobar, deadline.com

ETERNAL YOU | Filmmakers Hans Block & Moritz Riesewieck | Documentary

MOVEABLEFEST: How did this come about?

RIESEWIECK: In 2018, we discovered a website stating “[you could] become virtually immortal,” and we were like, “What?!?” First, we thought this is just a cheap scam. But we were curious enough to sign up for a waiting list and we got to meet the inventor of this technology, a fellow at MIT, so it seemed serious. But the technology wasn’t developed enough at that time, and he had disappointed his first clients. He told us he had a waiting list of about like 30,000 people, a lot of them in an existential crisis, [either] affected by death or had to die soon, and it was pretty disturbing to hear how he had to send them messages, [saying] “I promised too much, I’m not able to fulfill this dream yet.” We kept on researching this industry, and it’s really an emerging technology. Now there are startups all around the globe… READ MORE by Sephen Saito, movablefest.com

BRIEF HISTORY OF A FAMILY | Filmmakers Jianjie Lin | Narrative Fiction

Variety spoke to biologist-turned-filmmaker Lin Jianjie (aka JJ Lin) on the eve of his Sundance debut for his film “Brief History of a Family” which asks questions about family in the era since the end of China’s ‘One Child Policy,…How did you get from zero to making your first feature?

[After graduating in biology] I did two short films at film school. I went to Tisch Asia, which had a campus in Singapore. We also had an exchange program with Tisch in New York. At school, you may have a lot of ideas, but not all stay with you. This one did. Every once in a while, I went back to the idea and realized something new about it. Slowly it took shape. READ MORE by Patrick Frater, Variety.com

BLACK BOX DIARIES | Filmmaker Shiori Ito | Documentary

Ito admitted that she “didn’t even know how hard it would be” to come forward with her story. She was “ignorant” about how rape cases were handled in her native Japan… Ito relayed that when she reported her assault, the police told her she wouldn’t get to work in the media and her life would be over… There have been some changes to the laws in Japan regarding consent and sexual assault since Ito came forward. “The good news is we had two steps forward in our law,” she said. “Before, our age of consent with sex was 13 years old. Can you imagine? What were you thinking at 13? Now it’s 15. And before 2017 when I went public, men couldn’t claim rape cases, it was only for women. That changed. Slight changes are happening, which is very slow, but I’m hoping that will change more.”… READ MORE by Kristen Lopez, thewrap.com

FRIDA | Filmmaker Carla Gutierrez | Documentary

Gutierrez is a Peruvian emigre to the United States who made her name as an editor of documentaries (“RBG”), transitions to director with “Frida”… upon reading some of the books about her realized there was enough material for Kahlo to narrate her own story. “When I started looking at research material, I found that no one had truly focused on her voice and let Frida herself carry a narrative,”… Relying on Frida’s words was “liberating,” said Gutierrez. “All her writings are in different parts of the world in different collections. READ MORE by Anne Thompson, Indiewire.com

LOVE MACHINA | Filmmaker Peter Sillen | Documentary

For this project, Sillen served as his own cinematographer.
Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them?

Sillen: As a cinematographer, I try to ask, “what are the needs of the film?” Every film is different. Love Machina taps into the lofty idealism of the 1960s. Back then, there was a sense that if we collectively decide as a society, we want to accomplish something—no matter how big—we can do it. Martine and Bina grew up in the ’60s and became adults in the ’70s; this was a turbulent but hopeful time. The culture and aesthetics of those decades were low-fi and analog. Because we were using a large amount of archival footage, still photographs, and Mindfile interviews, I knew we would be able to create a tactile collage sensibility. It felt equally as important that our original footage ground the film and give the viewer a sense of trust. Keeping this in mind, I wanted our scenes to feel a sense of connection while staying grounded in a documentary reality… READ MORE by filmmakermagazine.com

HANDLING THE UNDEAD | Writer/Director Thea Hvistendahl | Nordisk Film

Question: The screenplay was written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and yourself. What was it like to collaborate with the book’s author on the adaptation, also when it came to distancing yourselves from the novel version?

Thea Hvistendahl: John first adapted the book himself, so he had made some choices already. I then wrote some drafts after I had entered the project, in which I could rewrite as I wished, with him approving. He gave me a lot of freedom. It was important to make the material mine, and to understand everything in there. The novel also says a lot about how society handles the undead, but I tried to peel away all other parts than the three stories we follow in the film, all of which share the same theme. READ MORE by Aleksander Huser, nordiskfilm&TVFond.com

AGENT OF HAPPINESS | Filmmakers Arun Bhattarai & Dorottya Zurbo | Catapult Film Fund

Some of the questions are direct. In the film, Gurung asks a young woman on her farm: “How happy and satisfied are you with your life, on a scale from 1 to 10?”
She responds with an emphatic “10,” since her cow (named “Lemo”) gave birth the day before. “We now have a cow for milking too. I can sell the milk, my life will become easier,” she said. “I was extremely happy.”

Most of the other questions get at the wide range of physical, emotional, spiritual and environmental factors that shape happiness… READ MORE by Jonathan Lambert, npr.com/goatsandsoda

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS |Writer/Director Shuchi Talati | Directorial Debut

KNEECAP | Writer/Director Rich Peppiatt | Wildcard

Q: What were your first impressions when you first saw Kneecap performing in Belfast in 2019?

Rich Peppiatt: I was blown away by the raw sensibility of them, their stage presence, the charisma. Also, the fact that they were rapping in a language that I didn’t understand, in a country that is essentially the UK. There was the best part of a thousand young people rapping back to them in that language as well.

I didn’t realise there was a community of young people in an urban centre like Belfast who were choosing to live their lives through a language like Irish. And that was my own ignorance, but I suddenly thought, hang on – I live here and didn’t know this, so I bet there’s millions of other people who didn’t notice either. That was the jumping off point of “maybe there’s a film in this”… READ MORE by Lou Thomas, bfi.org.uk

DAUGHTERS | Filmmakers Angela Patton & Natalie Rae | Girls For A Change

Q:In the docu, we meet the incarcerated fathers, but we never are told why they are in prison. Why did you decide not to include that information?

Rae: Because the importance for a daughter to have a father is really outside of the point of why the father is in prison. It really doesn’t matter what the fathers have done in terms of the girls deserving love.

Patton: When the girls decided to have this dance in the jail, the number one thing that they didn’t want people to say was that their fathers didn’t deserve (the dance) because of the crime they committed. The relationship that they may have had with their fathers prior to them being incarcerated was what was important to them. They were like, I just want to be with my father, the father who used to do homework with me or cook with me and play with me. So why the father was incarcerated is not the point (of this film). The point is for (the audience) to see this film as a love story… READ MORE by Addie Morefoot, Variety www.daughtersdocumentary.com | Available Soon on Netflix