Steven Soderbergh’s latest, Presence—his 36th feature, premiering at Sundance35 years after sex, lies, and videotape, his first—opens with a handheld point-of-view shot, looking down from a second-story window onto a driveway. After a moment, the camera turns and moves rapidly, dizzyingly through the empty, darkened rooms of a 100-year-old home, upstairs and downstairs, returning, finally, to settle in a closet in the room where the journey began. On the one hand, this long opening shot provides a map of the film’s site, which will be restricted to the interior of the home, an intriguing formal constraint that is a further condition of the initial choice of camera perspective, one that will never change: the first-person POV shot.
Soderbergh says he’s been adamant that such a condition would never work for narrative media (particularly for VR projects), insisting that the viewer will always require a reverse shot at some point, revealing the subject of the POV, the looker who the camera’s eye represents. The viewer will want an expression, an emotion in response to what’s seen. (Think of Jimmy Stewart’s reaction shots to his voyeuristic peeps at his neighbors in Rear Window.) But what’s already occurred to us, after the opening minutes of Presence, is that our feeling of disorientation, even as we’re becoming oriented to the house, is not ours: this feeling belongs to the camera, to the point of view, or character, it represents, that of the film’s titular presence. Its anxiety and confusion is palpable in the camera’s rapid panning and tracking, which is not jittery, so much as slithery, maybe slippery, a condition that sometimes made me worry for the cameraman—Soderbergh himself—as he goes flying up and down the old hardwood staircase. (He was wearing martial arts shoes for traction.)
In Presence,Soderbergh has made a rather novel ghost story. Novel not just for its technical constraints, but also in the sense that the ghost is not a ghost. It’s never referred to as anything but a presence. There are narrative reasons for this, a distinction that’s being made between a ghost, a thing that remains behind, a figure defined by the past, and a presence, an entity that inhabits, a thing of the present and maybe also of the future. While Soderbergh leans into several of the conventional capacities of a traditional ghost, not shying away from a few old-timey, actually unexpected, effects, the nature of the presence and particularly its identity contribute substantive mystery to the film, which is less a supernatural thriller than a family drama shaded by another definition of the title.
The presence in Presence, as it turns out, ends up cohabiting this old house with a deeply unsettled family, Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan playing parents to Ty (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang). Ty is his mother’s favorite, a vigorous and aggressive high school swimmer with big ambitions. Chloe, headstrong in her own way, is suffering from the shock and grief of recently losing a close friend, a strange death with extenuating circumstances. As the family takes a tour with their realtor, the presence immediately develops an interest in Chloe, prompting a hint of awareness from the girl that sets in motion themes of haunting, sensitivity and the nearness of death.
But it’s not just Chloe’s tragic experience that’s disrupting the family’s life. Mom and Dad are opposite characters, entangled in some kind of shady business that might destroy them, and Ty is prone to violent tirades, threatening that he will not let what he perceives as his sister’s problems derail his dreams. The sources of these destructive tensions are not unknown to the family, but they seem incapable of speaking about them without running up against the obstacle of each other’s certainty that they cannot, or should not, be the one to compromise or attempt change. Of course, given the film’s constraint, we can know nothing about anything without the presence as a witness, hanging about, taking interest, paying attention, perhaps trying to intervene, perhaps hoping to better understand itself in relation to these four human presences. In this sense, as a proxy for the audience and as our sole conduit of information and drama, the invisible entity, a seeming absence, becomes a metaphor for presence itself, a figure that offers something of an alternative to the lack of presence—concern, trust, transparency, care—that the family members are prepared to offer one another. Can the presence, as presence, effect change?
Liu, Liang, and Maday’s performances are uniformly strong, but Sullivan really stands out, particularly in a heartfelt scene with Liang, essentially a monologue, articulating the depth and breadth of a father’s love. And one should also praise Soderbergh’s performance as a cinematographer. His choreography with and around the actors is both elegant and affecting.
It should be noted that, while we may wonder about the nature of the presence, there is also a truly disturbing monster in the film, and fair questions have been raised about the detail with which that figure’s atrocities are shown. Again, given the formal constraints of the film, witnessing seems simply to be playing by the rules. Then again, the film’s genuine moral sensibility, constructed and played out through the ambiguities and actions of the presence, also seems to require it, and us, to see in order to know. And once we know, rather than suspect, whether and how to act—character, in a sense—becomes clear.
At any rate, Presence is an intriguing and challenging new experiment by a master filmmaker, making it well worth a watch.
Press Line of “Presence,” an entry of the Premieres section of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival (courtesy of Sundance Institute). Cast and crew: Corey Bayes, Julia Fox, West Mulholland, Callina Lian, Eddy Maday, Lucy Liu, Steven Soderbergh, Chris Sullivan, David Koepp and Ken Meyer.
The Looming examines ageism and mental health in a short, chilling horror tale.
The film is part of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2024 Midnight Short Film Program and directed by Masha Ko, who is also known for previous short films Bona to Vada and (W)hole.
Seventy-year-old Chester lives alone. One night, he hears noises. An investigation around the house takes place, and we get the sense something is, well, looming. Then more ferocious noises soon take their place, and it seems clear to Chester, and viewers, that something is after him. He isn’t taken seriously by others, and it’s unclear if Chester’s daughter, Melody, will be any help.
At least Chester has Luna, The Looming’s version of Amazon’s Alexa, by his side, validating his experiences and adding an element reminiscent of Black Mirror.
As someone who experienced memory loss due to an accident, I can think of few things scarier than dementia, losing one’s past and identity. In 15 minutes, Masha Ko has viewers questioning whether that is happening to Chester, or if it’s all real. Either way, it’s scary stuff.
Joseph Lopez, who plays Chester, does an excellent job making us fear for this hermit we get the sense is starved for human contact. His creepy home is complemented by even creepier practical effects, specifically when it comes to the monster played by a contortionist.
The Looming screens on Jan. 22, at 10 p.m. at The Ray, Park City. It will be online Jan. 25–28.
Ko’s explanation of the film offers further depth:
“My grandfather passed and I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she said in a filmmaker statement. “So, I made this film as a call for us to see—really see—the elderly among us. It’s a story that shines a light on the often ignored realities of our elders, who are too frequently relegated to the margins of our narratives, and our lives. I hope that in the reflection of Chester’s story, the viewers are reminded of their own families. Ultimately, The Looming is a call to action, a reminder to view our elders with empathy and inclusivity.
“The stark reality of my grandfather’s death influenced my genre approach: to present a narrative where reality itself is more chilling than any fictional monster.”
As a filmmaker, Ko wants to explore stories that are often overlooked. We will discuss The Looming and what Ko has planned for the future in an upcoming Q&A post.
Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden return to Sundance this year with a pretty delightful, action-packed romp through late-80s Oakland, Freaky Tales. Thefilm takes its name from a rap by Oakland legend Too $hort, who serves as our narrator and also has a brief cameo. (Keep an eye out for Marshawn Lynch, Sleepy Floyd, Tim Armstong and that guy from The Money Pit.) Though Oakland’s rap scene does play a role here, the film’s four chapters intertwine storylines traveling through the diverse socio-cultural landscape of the city at the time, which, as one cast member noted after the premiere, has been severely disrupted in recent years by gentrification. To that point, Freaky Tales’ nostalgia doesn’t overly fetishize fashion or music or objects, though all of these contribute to a more or less authentic feel. Rather, the film is interested in a lost and obviously beloved community. It’s interested in the ways in which, particularly perhaps from Fleck’s perspective, a sector of young Oakland at that time shared a dogged resistance to forces that wanted to crush and humiliate it.
The underdog is a central metaphor in Freaky Tales, and nothing characterizes this state-of-being better than the event that frames the whole film: Game Four of the Western Conference Semifinals, featuring the Golden State Warriors (remember, they used to play in Oakland?) and the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers. On May 10 that year, the Warriors were down 3-0 in the series, but, as we’re reminded early on in Freaky Tales, Golden State point guard Eric “Sleepy” Floyd scored 51 points in Game 4 to ruin a Lakers series sweep. Something was in the air that night, Too $hort tells us, signified by a weird green light that appears in a variety of forms throughout the film.
Before we get to the full implications of this seemingly supernatural event, however, Fleck and Boden lead us through some preliminaries, including an epic battle for existence between the denizens of a punk club fighting a band of neo-Nazis, and two young women, the rap duo Danger Zone, braving their fears to take the stage and battle a local idol. These first two chapters are certainly entertaining, wild and gory, but they do feel a bit light, even predictable, as we begin to wonder when the love, friendship and heroics we’re seeing will meet up with some true challenges, giving the whole project more substance.
Chapter 3, the longest to this point and featuring an engaging Pedro Pascal, delivers both tragedy and even greater stakes as some of the Tarantino-like path-crossing we’ve seen earlier begins to add up. The grand finale pushes Sleepy Floyd’s heroism to unimaginable heights, confirming the film’s central premise that its most generous and community-oriented figures, those who work to lift others up without regard for profit, will always come out on top. At least in fantasy.
More than an easy nostalgia trip, Freaky Tales is a pretty fun comic book, set in something like an alternative present, made, quite nicely, to look like the past. (The gore meter registers high, however, so be warned.) It doesn’t matter that many of the film’s moves are familiar. (There actually are some great surprises in the final chapter, and the use of animation throughout is both practical and clever.) Rather, Freaky Tales’ entertainment lies in its goofy and eager desire to expand on the joy of that one great night in the Coliseum, when the underdog knocked the bully cold, made the impossible possible. And even though the forces of darkness, with all their money and power, always seem to come back stronger to finish the job (and to take your team across the Bay), maybe that green glimmer of hope will be enough to encourage you to mount a resistance one more time.
One benefit to a reviewer of Gary Hustwit’s innovative documentary Eno’s reported 52 quintillion possible versions is that there’s no possibility of spoilers. Practically, the film’s most significant feature is its constant reconfiguration at the digital hands of generative software Hustwit developed with artist Brendan Dawes, assuring that every showing will be different than the last. While Hustwit told his audience at the film’s premiere that this version had been fully rendered in advance, ideally the work should be assembled as it plays in real time. When you see Eno—and you must see it—you will experience a completely different film than I did, and—this is where one might feel some frustration at the process—you’ll likely see scenes that I didn’t see, just as I’ve seen things you won’t. Zooming in from the UK to participate in the post-film Q&A, Brian Eno suggested that the project operates like human memory, following a winding path of unpredictable associations to create a rich and complex but always incomplete, or unfinished, portrait.
In terms of content, the film is truly one of the most inspiring works on creativity that I’ve seen in some time. It helps, of course, that its subject is a tremendously likeable human being. Eno is pure delight as a guide to himself and his aesthetics, reflecting with great precision on and clear-eyed analysis of his development as a musician, a composer, a producer and a visual artist. Though he’s now in his 70s, Eno’s ultimately positive and relentlessly curious approach to innovation feels as fresh and essential as it would have (to those with ears) in his glam rock period with Roxy Music in the early 1970s. Back then, Eno tells us, his axe was the newly developed synthesizer because the technology interested him and he had no capacity to play any other instrument. That even now the producer of iconic works by David Bowie, The Talking Heads, U2, and many others cannot write with conventional musical notation and has little use for common compositional terms is a testament to the tremendous power and precision of Eno’s creative imagination and his capacity to communicate his original ideas through intuitive and organic approaches to rhythm, melody, sonic mimicry, and metaphor.
One thing Eno is not is sentimental. There’s a touch of comic, cringing regret as he wades through the material archives of past experiments that Hustwit has asked him to revisit. But there’s also evidence of lingering interest and pleasure, as when Eno finds some of his daughter’s drawings in an old notebook (“this was her abstract period”), or, when flipping over a mini-cassette featuring crude vocal experiments that make him laugh, he suddenly recognizes Bono working out the vocal style for 1984’s “Pride (In the Name of Love).” The rawness and emergent brilliance playing through the recorder’s tinny speaker arrest Eno, as if he’s hearing this music for the first time.
As we might expect from a more conventional documentary, this moment transitions into an extended, edited sequence of fascinating and revealing archival studio footage in which a younger Eno encourages and mildly provokes a notably shy Bono into the defiant vocal character that defines the song, the very character for which the U2 front man is best known. When Bono complains, somewhat meekly, later in the sequence, that “Pride” no longer feels “grand” due to a reduction in length, Eno’s simple suggestion to slow it down brings a song that’s become nearly unhearable today because of its ubiquity into a renewed focus for the viewer, and the band’s earnest expressions of pleasure and discovery (of themselves) is startlingly moving. This is not solely the doing of Brian Eno. It’s a vision of the joy of collaboration, risk, and emergence.
Given the power and effectiveness of such typical documentary moves applied to this material, one may well ask if the formal experiment with generative processes is as productive as it might be. Does it make the film great or is its most important contribution to evoke, rather than build on, Eno’s approach to composition? In my version—which, to be clear, will never be seen again—the film closed with a somewhat thin consideration of what Eno’s aesthetics offer art made in response to contemporary environmental collapse. There’s obvious and important potential here that simply isn’t as developed as an earlier sequence on Eno’s concept of surrender, for example. But then, in your version, maybe the environmental point will be adequately developed while surrender may not appear at all. That’d be unfortunate for you. But you win some, you lose some, and maybe the most beautiful aspect of Eno’s life-art project is that failure simply doesn’t exist. “Honor thy error as hidden intention,” reads one of Eno’s famous Oblique Strategies. You just keep asking questions—what is art? what does an artist do? what have we never heard before? where have we never been before?—and the work keeps on going, shifting, growing, not becoming better necessarily, just more and more interesting.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival officially opens Thursday in Park City and Salt Lake City, and the full lineup includes more than 80 films that will be screening at this year’s festival, including film premieres and film entries competing in a variety of categories.
There is always hype around a handful of Sundance films before most people, including critics and industry insiders, even have a chance to see them, but one of the best parts of the Sundance Film Festival is the films that surprise us.
We spoke to Salt Lake magazine film contributors Michael Mejia and Jaime Winston to get their list of films that they think will make an impact this year, and we spoke with one of the people responsible for selecting Sundance’s film lineup. Heidi Zwicker is a Senior Programmer with Sundance Film Festival and she outlined some of the films that have her excited.
Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun appear in Love Me by Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Justine Yeung.
“It’s maybe no surprise that AI is a trending topic, with documentaries in the U.S. and World competitions (Love Machina and Eternal You, respectively), NEXT (Seeking Mavis Beacon), and an interactive project in New Frontier [Being (the Digital Griot)],” explains Meijia. “Also I’m very interested in Love Me, the Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize winner, a post-apocalyptic love story between two pieces of space detritus.”
Starting off, there was a lot of buzz about Love Me this year, as Sundance had already given the film an award before the Festival began. “Love Me stars Kristen Stewart and Stephen Yeun, who are both amazing actors. And I don’t think I could say better than the logline,” says Zwicker. The film is about “a buoy and a satellite” who meet online and fall in love long after humanity’s extinction.
“It’s really inventive, but it’s hard. It’s a love story that plays out in all these exciting ways, but it’s about human connection and so it’s beautiful and different. That’s something that we really like to see, too, is stuff we haven’t seen before,” says Zwicker
The 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize is an annual award given to an artist with “the most outstanding depiction of science and technology in a feature film.”
A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“I am also looking forward to checking out new projects by Sundance legends Steven Soderbergh (Presence, Premieres) and Richard Linklater (God Save Texas, Episodic; Hitman, Spotlight),” says Michael Mejia.
Zwicker is likewise excited that Sundance has artists like Steven Soderbergh bringing their work to the festival. “This is someone who has been so successful for so long, but he continues to take chances. He has a true spirit of innovation and independence in his work and in his new film, Presence…Throughout their careers, there’s always a home for them at Sundance. And I love that about our festival, too.”
Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg appear in A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“We saw a lot of films about family this year, which I think can be such universal stories,” says Zwicker. “I, personally, am a sucker for a tear-jerker. We found some really lovely, resonant stories about family and growing coming of age—universal themes that filmmakers continually find new ways to express.”
“I’m thinking about films like A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s film, which is a film about two cousins whose grandmother has recently passed, and they travel to Poland to honor her legacy as a Holocaust survivor, but while also managing their own relationship,” says Zwicker. “It’s funny and it’s emotional, and that’s a film that I found extremely moving.”
Richard Roundtree and June Squibb appear in Thelma by Josh Margolin, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by David Bolen.
“We have a very different kind of film in our Premiere section,” says Zwicker. “I love to see films that are not like anything we’ve seen.” Thelma—a film about a woman who is “duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson” and takes matters into her own hands to get retribution—stars an actress named June Squibb, a long-running character actress, but, says Zwicker, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her highlighted in a lead role. She’s 93 years old. Thelma is a family film, too, but also a thriller and also funny. It’s kind of a film that I think that everybody can enjoy, but it’s definitely not a story I had seen before”
A still from In The Summers by Alessandra Lacorazza, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Family-oriented films are certainly having a moment at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “I am excited to see In The Summers (U.S. Dramatic Competition), a coming-of-age film about two siblings and their annual visits with their loving, yet volatile, father,” says Winston. “It stars Lío Mehiel and Sasha Calle. I last saw Sasha as Supergirl in The Flash movie. While her Supergirl standalone film seems unlikely, I’m happy to see her career progressing. Last year at Sundance, I saw Lio in Mutt, and their performance completely blew me away.” You can see Jaime Winston’s review of Mutt here.
A still from Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Warner Bros / Alamy.
“Speaking of ‘super’ people, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which features unseen footage and personal archives of the legendary actor, has captured my attention,” says Winston.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is the Salt Lake Opening Night Film. The documentary premieres on January 19 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The documentary shows never-before-seen home movies and personal archives, which reveal how Christopher Reeve went from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star as the ultimate screen superhero, and how he learned the true meaning of heroism as an activist after suffering a tragic accident that left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.
“I think biographical docs in the last few years have really been having a moment,” says Zwicker. “And this one is what I think is the best of what a biographical doc can be because it’s made with love and honesty. You really understand what made this man so special,” she says. “And you understand that through the people who loved him telling truthful stories about who he was and his impact on their lives. It is a movie that had me just crying buckets.”
A still from As We Speak by J.M. Harper, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Music and musician-centered documentaries
Several other documentaries, falling into a few notable themes and trends, have caught our attention as well.
“I’m particularly excited by the array of music docs,” says Michael Mejia. “From an exploration of the use of rap lyrics as evidence in American courts (As We Speak, U.S. Documentary) to a NEXT doc on the Irish-language rap group Kneecap (Kneecap), looks at DEVO in Premieres (DEVO) and Brian Eno in New Frontiers (Eno), and Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, picking through the CIA’s deployment of jazz artists to distract from its undermining of the independence movement in the Congo in 1960.”
“We also have a biographical doc about Luther Vandross, which is a really thoughtful study of him as an and through his art,” says Zwicker aboutLuther: Never Too Much (Premieres). “You kind of learn more about him as a person, which I think is a really smart and caring approach.”
Frida Kahlo appears in FRIDA by Carla Gutiérrez, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C.
LatinX-centered documentaries
“I’m eager to check out the entries from Latin America, including U.S. and World docs on Frida Kahlo (Frida), Argentinian gauchos (Gaucho Gaucho), and social justice in Colombia (Igualada), and features from Brazil (Malu), Peru (Reinas), and Mexico (Sujo),” says Meijia.
“The Japanese film Black Box Diaries (World Cinema Documentary Competition), about a journalist investigating a high-profile offender in her own sexual assault, sounds interesting as well,” says Jaime Winston.
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele appear in Will & Harper by Josh Greenbaum, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Continuing with the documentaries that have us excited, is a documentary about Will Ferrell and his longtime friendship with a writer who he’d collaborated with many times, who transitioned, called Will & Harper. “It’s about their friendship through Harper’s transition, and it’s funny, too, because it’s Will Ferrell, of course, but super emotional,” says Zwicker.
A still from Girls Will Be Girls by Shuchi Talati, an official selection of the World Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“We have some terrific first features,” says Zwicker of this year’s lineup, which has a showing of films that broach the nuances and complexities of gender, identity and sexuality. “Girls Will Be Girls is an amazing Indian film in our World Competition that deals with coming-of-age female empowerment, female sexuality from a different cultural lens.
“It’s so lovely to see experiences that we know from our own lives told in a different cultural perspective,” says Zwicker. “it’s the kind of thing that makes you excited about world cinema. This sort of shared experience in storytelling. I see a lot of different voices around the world getting their first moment to get this spotlight. And that’s what I feel like our festival is for.”
This year’s Midnight selection, which features horror, thrillers and genre-defying works has a few standouts for us. “Last year, the horror film Talk to Me made me nervous driving home so late following the screening,” says Jaime Winston. “I can foresee a similar experience after watching The Moogai (Midnight), which is about a mother defending her baby from a sinister spirit.” Read the Talk to Me review here.
Zwicker admits she’s particularly adept and giving people Sundance film screening recommendations based on which Sundance films they’ve enjoyed in the past. We decided to put it to the test. One of our favorite Sundance films in recent years was Cha Cha Real Smooth, the 2022 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award winner. Cha Cha Real Smooth is a sharp, offbeat but heartfelt dramedy about relationships and growing up, centered around a floundering 20-something who works the bar mitzvah party circuit, that made Salt Lake magazine’s list of festival highlights that year as well. What 2024 film would Zwicker recommend based on that?
“Let’s see, something charming…I’m going to say there’s a film in our Premiere section called The American Society of Magical Negroes,” she says. “It is part fantasy. It is part rom.com. It is totally inventive. And it’s this conception of the magical Negro trope that appears in many sorts of old films…and this film totally flips that dated convention on its head. It’s really funny, but it’s also sweet. If you’re a fan of Real Smooth, that would be my recommendation.”
This year marksthe 40th festival for the Sundance Film Festival. In some ways, it’s hard to believe an event that has such an influence on film and art worldwide could possibly be that old. In other ways, it feels as if the festival has always been a permanent part of Park City and Utah. This 40th year marks Eugene Hernandez’s second as Festival Director, but, for people close to the event, it might feel as if Hernandez has always been a permanent fixture of the festival as well.
Eugene Hernandez
Sundance film festival director. Photo courtesy of Sundance
Hernandez started coming to Sundance 30 years ago, as a journalist in the mid-1990s, to build Indiewire. For Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO, bringing in Hernandez is a “full circle” moment. Vicente was a film producer and met Hernandez during those early years. “Many times we would meet at Sundance,” she says, illustrating one of the festival’s primary functions. “Sundance is really a place about discovery. It’s this gathering place where you meet collaborators that you’re going to be working with.”
“The two of us are part of this broader independent film community because of the role that Sundance played in our own lives,” says Hernandez. Within that community he includes industry folks and audiences, particularly locals, who have shown “tremendous enthusiasm for coming back together,” he says. They saw this last year as well, when nearly 87,000 people physically attended the festival. Participants redeemed 138,000 tickets and contributed $118.3 million to Utah’s gross domestic product, according to an economic impact study on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “There’s something unique and special about every year coming back to that community,” says Hernandez. And the community is growing. With the accessibility of digital, festival films screenings received more than 285,000 views online.
The Sundance audience attends a festival event at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. To Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO, the Sundance audience makes it the best festival to make a first impression, as it is both an industry festival and a public-facing one. “There’s a chemistry that happens when you have people who are not in the industry watching films,” says Vicente, which sparks robust Q&A’s with filmmakers. Photo credit Henny Garfunkel
The Next Sundance
So what will Sundance look like with a longtime participant and professional, like Hernandez, as director? His focus is on connection, specifically connecting to art and to others through art. Forty years in, Hernandez attributes the festival’s longstanding cultural relevance to its support of independent artists. “Sundance plays such a vital part in starting the year with a new class of filmmakers, and that first impression is so essential,” says Hernandez. So the question becomes, “How do we assure that each film and filmmaker and the teams that come to Utah as part of that experience have the best shot at introducing themselves and their work to our various audiences?”
Joana Vicente
Sundance Institute CEO. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.
To that end, the 2024 Sundance Film Festival will carry forward some of the aspects of the 2023 festival—such as the hybrid model, with films available to screen in-person and online—while trying to infuse the event with more meaning and connection by emphasizing the in-person experience. To make those first impressions as special as possible, film premieres will only be screened in-person and competition films will be screened online only during the second half of the festival.
With this new model, the hope, in part, is to make the in-person portion of the festival—well—festive. Like with all anniversaries, expect celebration. Reflecting on 40 years, Sundance plans to honor the past by celebrating the future. “Celebrating the future is about continuing to be curious and to curate and bring the most exciting voices, stories and people who are the future of independent storytelling,” says Hernandez. The festival is also celebrating its legacy of discovering new talent. This year’s Opening Night Gala will celebrate a director who got his start at Sundance with the film Memento, Christopher Nolan.
“It really is unique among other festivals to have that focus on spotlighting and showcasing what’s new while also celebrating that alongside some of the familiar faces,” says Hernandez. “That’s really the work…to continue bringing people together.”
Sundance 2024 At A Glance
Festival dates: Jan. 18-28, 2024. Opening Night Gala is Jan. 18 at the DeJoria Center. In-person screenings begin around noon on Jan. 18. Online screenings begin Jan. 25.
The lineup: 90+ feature films, 60+ shorts.
Park City venues: Eccles Theater, Egyptian Theatre, Holiday Village Cinemas, Library Center Theatre, The Ray Theatre, Redstone Cinemas and Prospector Square Theatre.
SLC venues: Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway, the Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas and the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
“No Welfare for Sundance + Kimball,” read the anonymously authored sticky note. The note contained one of many such nuanced takes from a late fall event designed to gather public input regarding Park City’s possible future arts and culture district in Bonanza Park. Setting aside the ludicrous, anonymous nature of the feedback—which channels some of the most vocal characters of an internet comment section—the event’s very existence reflected a contemplative mood surrounding what was once a broadly supported development concept. Local sentiment is seemingly less enamored with the world of art and entertainment. Is the feeling mutual?
If a faction of fed-up residents were contemplating ousting Sundance, the fabulously impactful annual film festival, some rumors suggest they may not get the chance. Word on the street is Sundance has been considering an exit from Park City, possibly leading to a situation of “You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you!”
Reporting from Deadline in July 2023 indicated festival organizers were fielding RFPs from numerous cities including Santa Fe, New Mexico and Bentonville, Arkansas. Sundance reps replied at the time that the requests for proposals were related only to Sundance Labs, the year-round programs Sundance Institute runs to develop upcoming filmmakers. One of the labs is held at Utah’s Sundance Resort, which is undergoing extensive construction, necessitating the need for an alternative location.
The enticing morsel of Hollywood gossip got a boost a few months later when Sundance Film Festival leadership requested an extension on the deadline to renew its agreement with Park City to hold the festival in town beyond 2026, when the current agreement expires. The requested seven-month extension (from March 1 to Oct. 1, 2024) indicated Sundance is conducting a broad review of the festival’s future. In a letter to Mayor Nana Worel, Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente pointed to new executive leadership, several years of declining revenue and “many uncertainties” that make a “new vision” for the partnership essential.
Is Sundance really asking to see other people? Are they merely trying to find out if Park City is serious about their relationship? Is this strained metaphor an inaccurate lens through which to view a standard negotiating tactic relating to an agreement that automatically renews in 2027 without a two-year written notice by either party? It’s hard to say.
Despite unconfirmed rumors of Sundance leaving Utah, the festival will be back at venues in Park City and Salt Lake City, like the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Photo credit Sundance Film Festival
Those sticky notes referenced in the introduction weren’t about the Sundance Film Festival itself but the Sundance Institute’s presence as an anchor tenant in the planned arts and culture district. In 2017 when the district was conceived, three parties—City Hall officials, Sundance Institute representatives and Kimball Art Center leadership—envisioned a vibrantly reimagined section of town that would lessen the community’s reliance on outdoor tourism while serving as a long-term hub of artistic cultivation.
The intervening years, in no small part due to the pandemic, upended best laid plans. Locals have bristled as the city’s estimated portion of the bill, which has exceeded $90 million. Vicente’s letter made no mention of Sundance Institute moving to Summit County. The Kimball Art Center continues to operate in its “temporary” digs on Kearns Blvd. with no end in sight. Meanwhile, the lots where businesses in Prospector were razed to make way for the arts and culture district remain vacant. Relationships are hard. Rumors are swirling.
“Good riddance,” some residents would no doubt say, at least, anonymously, on sticky notes. If it ever comes time to cut ties with the festival and organization that has become synonymous with Park City, the community will have to reckon with whether the grass is really greener. Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.
It’ll Be ‘Festival As Usual’ This Year
Park City has hosted the Sundance Film Festival since 1981, when it was still known as the U.S. Film Festival. In its 40th festival year, Sundance in Park City and Salt Lake City has hosted, thousands of films, millions of attendees and countless gossiped-about celebrity sightings. (I’ve talked to both Danny Glover and pre-ayahuasca-enthused Aaron Rodgers.) If you’re reading this between the dates of Jan. 19-29, 2024, get out to Main Street and revel in the madness. Who knows how many years it’ll still be a possibility.
On Wednesday, the Sundance Film Festival revealed its lineup for the 2024 Festival year—including 82 films, eight episodic titles and a New Frontier interactive experience.
This year marks the 40th edition of the Festival.
Festival organizers and programmers say this year’s programming, the 40th edition of the festival, is special. “Sundance’s passion and power shine through its programming. Curation is Sundance’s secret sauce and we’re energized by the range of films, stories, and artists we’ve watched and selected from around the world,” said the Director of Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Hernandez. “Our programming team, led by Kim Yutani, has curated 11 days of exciting new voices and stories for the many audiences we serve whether they’re joining us in Utah or experiencing the Festival offerings from afar. Sundance 2024 will be a special year for discovery and community.”
“While we don’t set out to program the Festival with a defined theme in mind, it became apparent this year that our slate’s biggest strength is how it showcases the vitality of independent storytelling,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “These titles are inventive and they beautifully represent the kind of groundbreaking work we’ve sought to amplify at Sundance throughout our history.”
The Festival kicks off at noon on January 18 with premieres in Park City. Adding to the festivities that evening, Sundance Institute will host the Opening Night Gala: Celebrating 40 Years. The fundraiser will benefit artists and support the Sundance Institute. At the Opening Night Gala, the proceedings will recognize Sundance alum filmmaker Christopher Nolan with the Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award, as well as Celine Song and Maite Alberdi with the Vanguard Award for Fiction and Vanguard Award for Nonfiction, respectively.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival happens January 18–28, 2024, with in-person film screenings and events in Park City and Salt Lake City. Some films will be available to screen online nationwide from January 25–28, 2024.
What to watch for at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival
The Salt Lake Opening Night Filmis Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, a documentary premiering on January 19 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The documentary shows never-before-seen home movies and personal archives, which reveal how Christopher Reeve went from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star as the ultimate screen superhero, and how he learned the true meaning of heroism as an activist after suffering a tragic accident that left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. (Director and Producer: Ian Bonhôte; Director and Screenwriter: Peter Ettedgui; Producers: Lizzie Gillett, Robert Ford)
A film screening in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category, Love Me,is the winner of the 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, an annual award given to an artist with “the most outstanding depiction of science and technology in a feature film.” The film, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun (who starred in the 2020 Sundance film Minari), is about “a buoy and a satellite” who meet online and fall in love long after humanity’s extinction. The award recognized the film’s directors and screenwriters, Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero.
The Zucheros are first-time feature film directors at the Sundance Film Festival, which make up 40% of the feature film directors accepted into this year’s festival.
Stewart, meanwhile, has starred in several Sundance films over the years, including another film at this year’s festival: Love Lies Bleeding, an entry in this year’s MIDNIGHT lineup, which features horror, thrillers, and genre-defying works. The film follows “reclusive gym manager Lou, who falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.” Actor Jena Malone (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) appears in Love Lies Bleeding as well, along with Katy O’Brian (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Ed Harris, Dave Franco and Anna Baryshnikov (Manchester by the Sea).
Like Stewart, Malone has multiple projects at Sundance this year. Little Death (a world premiere in the Festival’s innovation-focused NEXT category) is the work of another first-time Sundance feature film director, Jack Begert. Dani Goffstein is the screenwriter and the film is produced by Darren Aronofsky (whose directorial debut, Pi, premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival). Little Death is about “A middle-aged filmmaker on the verge of a breakthrough. Two kids in search of a lost backpack. A small dog a long way from home.” David Schwimmer, Gaby Hoffmann, Dominic Fike, Talia Ryder (who made her feature film debut in the 2020 Sundance film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always) and Sante Bentivoglio round out the cast.
Those with multiple projects at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival also include Jesse Eisenberg with A Real Pain (director/actor) and Sasquatch Sunset (producer/actor); Filipina actor Dolly De Leon with Ghostlight and Between the Temples; Dungeons & Dragons actor Justice Smith with The American Society of Magical Negroes and I Saw the TV Glow; The Worst Person in the World actor Renate Reinsve with Handling the Undead and A Different Man; Emma Stone and Dave McCary produced A Real Pain and I Saw the TV Glow; and director Richard Linklater with God Save Texas and Hit Man.
Festival darling Aubrey Plaza returns to Sundance with the premiere of My Old Ass, written and directed by Megan Park and produced by Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley. The description of the film reads, “The summer before college, bright-yet-irreverent Elliott comes face-to-face with her older self during a mushroom trip. The encounter spurs a funny and heartfelt journey of self-discovery and first love as Elliott prepares to leave her childhood home.” A number of Plaza’s castmates from Mike White’s The White Lotus also have projects at the Festival this year: Murray Bartlett (Ponyboi), Will Sharpe (A Real Pain), Meghann Fahy (Your Monster), Fred Hechinger (Thelma) and Brittany O’Grady (It’s What’s Inside).
The full slate of 2024 Sundance films includes 82 feature-length films, representing 24 countries. Eleven of the feature films and projects announced today were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs. World premieres make up 85 (94%) of the Festival’s 90 feature films and episodic programs.
Tickets and film screenings
Films will be screened in SLC at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway and Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas.
In-person ticket packages and passes and online ticket packages and passes are currently on sale, and single film tickets go on sale January 11 at 10 a.m. Visit sundance.org for tickets and more information about how to participate in the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
