Sundance Film Festival: List of best films released at the event this year

The Sundance Film Festival is one of the most revered and sought after festivals in the world. It is a massive celebration of cinema wherein movies, especially independent films get released and screened. This festival takes place in January in Park City, Utah. This year’s festivals is sprinting close to its end. Hence here’s a list of the best Sundance Films released this year.

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Best Sundance films

There are a bunch of films this year, which viewers need to keep an eye out for. Some of them will clearly make it to theatres and streaming platforms in the future. Along with two Bay Area films Homeroom and Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, here are some other Sundance films according to its website.

Wild Indian

Helmed by director/writer Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., this feature narrates a Native American take on the Cain and Abel tragedy and is cut too close to the bone. The narrative of this film makes it a difficult watch as it covers childhood murder, repression, re-invention and the hazards of fitting in. Characters face the challenge of stepping away from your heritage and artists Michael Grayeyes and Chaske Spencer deliver shattering performances.

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My Name is Pauli Murray

This film is made by the Oscar-nominated director behind the documentary, RBG. The directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen  became acquainted with the life and work of Murray, an influential Black lawyer/activist/poet/while they were still working on RBG. Murray was also an author and priest and UC Berkeley School of Law graduate. In fact, it was none other Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself who had tipped off the filmmakers to Murray’s compelling story. As Murray is lesser-known in many circles this film narrates the story of her legacy and her struggle with depression and as well as gender identity issues.

The Pink Cloud

Quite a number of Sundance titles addressed the COVID-19 pandemic. Same Breath and How It Ends, were two films that captured the essence of the year 2020 and humanities struggle with COVID. However, one of the films that stood out the most in this genre was made by Brazilian director/writer Iuli Gerbase. This quarantine drama was filmed prior to shutdown, and seems utterly prophetic in its observation of the psychological damage wrought by a shutdown. The story follows a couple (Renata de Lelis and Eduardo Mendonca) who are sealed with their newborn in an apartment, and Gerbase captures the numbing, everyday claustrophobia as the family watches the mysterious and deadly pink clouds that never leave.

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First Date

First-time feature filmmakers Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp take their audiences on a joy ride with this jaunty comedy/thriller. It is fondly inspired by the likes of Robert Rodriguez, John Hughes and Quentin Tarantino. In their narrating of this story the Valley Springs buddies have effectively put a new engine under the hood of the tired coming-of-age comedy-drama.

R#J

If you thought that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was too old to be brought to life in a new way, director Carey Williams has proven you wrong.  Williams brings a poppin’ new style in this take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, by filling the cast with young actors of colour and filming it via social media platforms. To reach his lofty ambitions the director used very modest means, especially in the finale.

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Cryptozoo

One of the fan favourite graphic novelists is Dash Shaw, who followed up his feature debut My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea with this surreal offering. Cryptozoo is set in a San Francisco zoo overrun with fantastical hybrid animal characters. They are threatened by homo sapiens, as the military is seeking to weaponize them. This film is one of the few animated pieces made this year.

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Eight for Silver

Fans of classic Hammer horror films should need to sink their teeth into writer/director Sean Ellis’s werewolf tale. Actor Boyd Holbrook of Narcos plays up his hunk factor as a 19th-century pathologist. His character discovers a curse hounding a rich family whose patriarch triggered a vile act of genocide. The film is filled with Gothic mystique with relish and outfits and jump scares that’ll make you giggle.