Brigham Young University grad Cole Webley’s debut feature, Omaha, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and its final 20 minutes stunned its audiences.

In the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, his wife’s death, being evicted and having little money, a father (John Magaro) wakes his daughter, Ella (Molly Belle Wright), for a family road trip. Also included are his son, Charlie (Wyatt Solis), and their dog, Rex. The father attempts to make the journey from Nevada to the Midwest fun with kite flying, ice cream and more, but his continual brooding and frustrated phone calls tell Ella a different story. Like the car she helps him push down the road to start, her dad is worn out. His mood shifts regularly — solemn to joyful to mournful.

“He plays this father who really has to walk this tightrope act of empathy and grief and torment and dwindling mental health if you will, and this crisis of moments,” Webley told us about Magaro, whose strong performance is complemented by Wright’s emotional portrayal and Solis’ natural playfulness. (There seems to be no end to Charlie’s poop jokes, lightening the mood in a heavy film.)

The movie’s title is just a slight hint to the family’s destination.

Utahns will recognize scenes featuring Helper, the Great Salt Flats and our mountains. But any joy you find in pointing out those familiar spots you saw on your own road trip must be balanced with stills of an abandoned home, forlorn children and a desperate father that will stay with you.

Robert Machoian, known for his 2020 Sundance film The Killing of Two Lovers, wrote Omaha. While a fictional story, he told filmgoers at Sundance he was inspired by an NPR story he came across. While some who also heard the story responded with judgment, others put themselves in the shoes of the subjects to gain some understanding. Omaha is worth seeing to find where you stand.

Read our interview with Webley for more on the film and his career.

Read more of our ongoing Sundance coverage of the festival and enjoy all of our arts and culture coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe to our print magazine and get six copies a year of Salt Lake magazine.

Tadashi Nakamura spent 2020 to 2024 shooting his documentary, Third Act, so his father, legendary filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, wouldn’t be forgotten. But the film he created, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, goes beyond his father’s life to explore how prejudice, sickness, activism, success and love helped shape four generations of a Japanese-American family.

It was meant to be, as there was little chance of Robert being forgotten.

Robert became known as the “godfather of Asian American media,” making Hito Hata: Raise the Banner and other films about the Japanese American experience. His 1971 film Manzanar was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. He co-founded Visual Communications, an Asian-Pacific American media arts organization. He was a longtime professor at UCLA, where he founded the Center for EthnoCommunicaions in the Asian American Studies Center. Additionally, Robert and his wife, Karen, founded the Watase Media Arts Center. Today, Tadashi is the center’s director.

While Robert became a filmmaker/activist who inspired others to take pride in their heritage, Third Act explores a time when he felt ashamed. During World War II, the United States incarcerated Robert and his family at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, one of 10 camps established for West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry. Robert’s father, who worked from a gardener to a businessman, lost everything and had to start over after the experience. Robert’s self-image in the face of discrimination is somewhat reflected in Tadashi, who tried to shed any Asian stereotypes by presenting himself as the all-American jock during his formative years. We see how depression followed Robert throughout life and became more apparent after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease during filming.

Tadashi is also a main character. He explains the pressure he felt being the legend’s son, and Tadashi and Robert seem nearly joined at the hip throughout the film.

As Roberts’s disease progresses, more family members come to the forefront, including Tadashi’s son Prince, bringing Tadashi to reflect on the future as well as the past.

Third Act is told with family photos, footage from Robert’s films and activism, historical images from Manzanar and the war, interviews and even some seemingly mundane scenes that introduce the audience to the family. Through the film’s first, second and third acts, it keeps returning to Manzanar, a once traumatic site that is now connecting generations. Third Act will make you laugh and cry with its stars. It’s a touching and thought-provoking documentary that belongs at the festival.

During a Q&A, Tadashi explained that filming helped him escape reality. He thought he could keep his working relationship with his father alive as long as they worked on the film.

Thankfully, Robert, 88, was also at the festival to see the final cut.

Read more of our ongoing Sundance coverage of the festival and enjoy all of our arts and culture coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe to our print magazine and get six copies a year of Salt Lake magazine.

Hal & Harper continues to highlight Cooper Raiff’s incredible talent

Cooper Raiff, writer/director behind Sundance 2022’s breakout hit Cha Cha Real Smooth, returned this year with his follow up. Occupying a similar dramedy space, Hal & Harper is about two grown children and their father (played by the brilliant Lili Reinhart, Cooper Raiff and Mark Ruffalo, respectively) working to confront, exhume and process the tragedy and trauma that has marred their lives, relationships and attachment styles. Like Cha Cha Real Smooth, the story is charming, funny, heartbreaking and emotional. The characters shine and take the lead in the 8-episode season. 

Intrigued by the idea of adults playing kids in situations, surrounded by other children (for example, 28-year-old Raiff playing a 6-year-old first grader, surrounded by 6 year-old actors), Raiff began writing scenes about two siblings navigating childhood after the success of his last feature. After a while, he said he had a stack of scenes that gave him the fodder for this TV show. Independently produced, he wrote and directed all eight episodes (and said it was very hard on him and everyone involved, nearly “killing” them). 

The show is centered around the tragedy of Hal and Harper’s mother leaving when they were small children—an event that shattered their family dynamics and altered their lives forever. In flashbacks up to this moment, chronologically, Hal and Harper are played by child actors. After that event, the child versions of the siblings are played by Raiff and Reinhart. It’s a poignant and powerful image, communicating the way in which they had to grow up too fast and be the adults in their family after losing their mother. Feeling strange and alienated as children, Hal and Harper became each others’ best friends—a dynamic that still stands as adults. 

In the present, Hal is getting ready to graduate from college while Harper is working in her field, considering marriage and children with her long-time girlfriend, Jessie. But the unexamined trauma and effect of their childhood is causing strain and self-destruction on all fronts. Hal can’t be alone and Harper can’t make any decision that prioritizes her wants or needs first. She has to take care of everyone else, first. A role she’s been doing since she was five. 

When their father (the always superb Mark Ruffalo) reaches out to let them know that his girlfriend Kate (the underutilized yet incredible Betty Gilpin) is pregnant, the idea of bringing a child into their family of broken childhoods sets all of them on a path to confronting the demons that haunt them. 

Hal & Harper is subtle, sublime and powerful. So much of the conflict and struggle these characters face is shown to us in silent moments. The meat of the story is often what isn’t said—what hangs in silence between lines of dialogue. These are characters who have coped with tragedy by not talking about it, so their inability to talk about anything shows up in every scene. 

Early on in the series, Harper tells Hal, “I’m not a good person. You’re not either.” And this current of self destruction spurred by abandonment and a lack of safety runs through every action they take. 

The pilot and second episodes are the strongest of the series. They’re funny and painful and profound. The next six episodes could use some editing. While the overall arc of the show is fantastic, with too much time and space to meander, the story loses its thread from time to time. There were too many scenes where the characters just existed in a space so we could see how they reacted. Instead of them leading scenes, they were just observers. The space afforded to a TV show allows Raiff to expand and explore the complex character dynamics—and I’m glad he’s given that chance, but the show could benefit from editing down to a tight five episodes. But the care given and emotion communicated as it relates to codependency, attachment issues, trauma, tragedy and the love and support of friends and family is powerful and poignant. 

Lili Reinhart, who is also an executive producer on the show, is incredible. Her strength, vulnerability and charm elevate the material and make even the slower parts of the series captivating to watch. Mark Ruffalo always brings his A-game to these quiet, domestic roles. Raiff acts as a perfect counterbalance to the two strong, dramatic performances, by bringing a sense of levity and self-deprecation to the childlike Hal. And when Betty Gilpin is given something to do, she acts as the emotional center of the movie—an outsider to the family that gives them a tether to reality. 

I was absolutely blown away by Cha Cha Real Smooth, and, while Hal & Harper might not be as successful overall, it’s far more ambitious, nuanced and sublime.

Read more of our ongoing Sundance coverage of the festival and enjoy all of our arts and culture coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe to our print magazine and get six copies a year of Salt Lake magazine.