In fiction, there is a character trope often called the “Magical Negro,” in which a black character serves only purpose in the story—to show up and help a white person get the knowledge, inspiration or resolve they need in order to fulfill their dreams and goals. The Magical Negro does not have any goals or desires or character arcs outside the role as help to a white character. The American Society of Magical Negroes opens with the question “what if that trope isn’t just fiction…?”

Justice Smith plays Aren, a struggling artist who lives in a constant state of anxiety and people-pleasing that stems from existing as a black person in America. At the beginning of the film, his subconscious need to accommodate and placate the white people around him puts him in a situation where a man jumps to the conclusion that Aren is trying to rob his drunk girlfriend (who initially asked for his help but then got confused in her inebriated state). Just before the situation turns violent and potentially deadly, David Alan Grier—playing Roger—intervenes and magically fixes the situation. The white people leave happy and Roger takes Aren on a walk. He explains that he wants to recruit him into a centuries-old organization called the American Society of Magical Negroes. 

Thus begins the strongest sequence of the film where Aren is taken to an arcane school (think Hogwarts for Black Americans) that is located through a secret entrance in a barber shop. He is taught that the society is the “Vanguard of White Relaxation” because the most dangerous animal alive is a white person who feels uncomfortable. Their job is to monitor comfort levels and intervene when the levels rise to dangerous levels (the device they use measures “White Tears” as the key indicator). Leading most of this instruction is Aisha Hinds (playing Gabbard). The training montage is hilarious and skewers films like The Green Mile and Driving Miss Daisy. 

The writing is sharp as a knife with brilliant satire that evokes equal parts laughs and yikes. The following “training course” mission involving a lonely and isolated white cop sequence is both silly and subversively dark. 

After that creative and exhilarating opening, the movie shifts back to the real world where Aren is tasked with his first assignment—help a graphic designer for a generic billion-dollar social media tech company whose fear and discomfort with his place in the world is beginning to escalate into dangerous territory. 

Though the skewering of the corporate lip service to diversity and the toxic environment created by white, clueless, insulated Tech CEOs is very funny and prescient, the turn from magical realism into “social media companies are bad and ignorantly racist” is a tonal shift from originality to expected and takes a little wind out of the films’ sails. However, the continued strong writing, great performances (again, Justice Smith is king neurotic mumbler these days), and real world comedy keep the movie going as we get to the climax which becomes rousingly raw, honest, heart breaking and equally hilarious. 

The movie presents the idea that the only way to be safe is to never make white people uncomfortable. And, especially for a Sundance movie, the film does the same. It pushes and prods and skewers the racism of white supremacy but never pushes quite hard enough to make us uncomfortable. Charm and wit round off and potential sharp edges. 

But, as a movie that already has mass distribution secured (Focus Features will be releasing TASoMN in March), it takes the Barbie approach. By boiling down concepts and ideas that, on their face, are considered controversial and triggering by some into a funny, charming and witty story, it makes them digestible. Instead of digging deep and really pushing back, TASoMN makes you laugh and root for the characters without feeling like they’re attacking the predominant American culture of white supremacy. 
And that was (one of the many) strengths of Barbie. While criticized by some as being too pedantic, safe, or mass market—it reached audiences who would never go near a 100-level course on feminist theory. The American Society of Magical Negroes takes a similar approach. And while some will wish it dug deeper or pushed harder, I could see its approach, excellent delivery and execution opening the discussion on racism, white supremacy and the dangers of being black in America to a wider audience. And I hope it really does. Because it’s a really funny, intelligent and heartfelt film.

In the Summers, winner of the Sundance 2024 U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize, tells the story of siblings Eva and Violeta as they visit their father at his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the summers as they grow up. 

Their back-and-forth trips seem to reflect their back-and-forth relationship with him, growing close and then distant, while developing his best, and worst, traits.

During a Q&A session, director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio said she made the film after her father’s death and she and her sister began reminiscing about visiting him during summers. Las Cruces reminded her of places her father lived, where the two children to stand out amid barren terrain—a lot like dessert blossoms.

Rapper and singer Residente stars as the father, Vincente, in his first feature role. It seems there’s hope for a strong relationship with both of his daughters at first. He wraps gifts, cleans up the home he inherited from their grandmother and arrives on time to pick them up. However, continuing the oscillating theme, Vincente’s rougher side slowly creeps in, and later retreats. While one child continually tries to impress him, the other drifts away as he fails to recognize who they become. Vincente’s choice in beverage, and how much he drinks, often signals the side of him you’ll get.

In the Summers features Lio Mehiel and Sasha Calle (The Flash) as the young adult versions of Violeta and Eva. We were excited for Mehiel’s return to Sundance after seeing them in last year’s Mutt. Mehiel, Calle and four younger actresses playing the characters at different stages show the audience how sibling bonds can be resistant, and often strengthened, through the difficult times.

The film is celebrated for showing aspects of Latino culture often unseen on film. And, as a desert lover, the Las Cruces scenery is also a treat.

Dìdi, which won the Sundance 2024 U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award, tells the story of Chris Wang, a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy trying to fit in while dealing with peer pressure, his own immaturity, assimilation and casual racism in the age of MySpace. 

During a Q&A session, director Sean Wang said he was inspired by Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and wondered what it would be like if that film were set in Fremont, California, a community with many immigrant families, in the 2000s. Wang added that the film is also inspired by his upbringing.

For millennials, Dìdi is a call back to having to race home to use the Internet, AOL chat, Paramore, A Walk to Remember and what it meant to be on someone’s “top eight.” 

For adults, regardless of generation, it reminds us of being a third wheel or completely left out, our collective teenage stupidity, and struggling to meet the level of sexual experience we assume all our friends have. Perhaps even more strongly, adults will relate to Chris’ mother, Chungsing Wang, who struggles to remain relevant in her increasingly independent children’s lives. 

Along with the usual angst, Chris struggles with culture issues. A girl tells him he’s “pretty cute… for an Asian.” Likely internalizing such attitudes and trying to meet his friends expectations of an American kid, he falsely claims he’s only “half Asian.” Internally, he also seems to struggle with his sister going away to college and his father working overseas. 

All the pressure manifests in pranks, fights and rebellion. But when Chris has pushed everyone else away, will he realize who will always be there for him?

Dìdi deserves its audience award, and we hope to see more films from Wang soon.

“I wanted to create a narrative that celebrated queer life, particularly queer Arab life, with unapologetic joy and tenacity.” 

These are the words director Amrou Al-Kadhi used to describe their debut feature film, Layla, following the self-discovery journey of the titular character Layla, a young, non-binary Arab drag queen struggling with the nuances of their identity. The result is a colorful and emotional film, full of just as much fun and flair as its director. 

Over the course of the film, Al-Kadhi’s script and characters take on complex identity explorations, from queer binary constructs to the challenge of being a child of Arab immigrants, and from “femme phobia” in the LGBTQ+ community to finding ‘self’ in a digital age. 

“I was tired of endless trauma narratives surrounding the queer Arab experience,” Al-Kadhi says. In avoiding those traumas, Al-Kadhi crafted a story of genuine connection, discovery and realistic heartbreak, a rarity for queer performers, especially those in drag. 

“Drag creates an accessible fantasy for the audience, acting as tokens for ‘woke’ societies” explains Al-Kadhi. “They are constantly modifying themselves for the role, and even in everyday life Layla transcends many worlds, often conflicting ones.” 

In Layla, a character is presented with that same facade of shiny surface candy, but is allowed to deliver what actor Bilal Hasna describes as ‘raw queer meat.’ Notably, Layla is permitted to have an inherent sexuality. Often, drag queens are only permitted to exist in a performative space. Layla, however, strays from the typical masc and cis-centered queer narrative, allowing femme energy and discovery to be on full display in the bedroom, a rarity among gay romances. 

Bilal Hasna delivered a remarkable performance as Latif-turned-Layla, embodying every contradiction of the role with confidence. Hansa allowed for endless self-modification–it was indeed striking how much the character’s aura morphed based on clothing and appearance. Though never fully realized or integrated, Hasna slowly allowed those identities to merge, bringing Layla (as a drag queen) poise and energy to the titular character’s daily persona. 

“Layla (and by translation, Bilal) was the ultimate shapeshifter,” says Al-Kadhi. “Both were constantly trying to embody the in-between.” 

Other characters in the film acted as ideal contrasts for Layla’s spark and joy. Best friend character Princy (played by Safiyya Ingar who fans may recognize from the Witcher franchise on Netflix) embodies a darker aesthetic against Layla’s fluorescent one, bringing a healthy dose of attitude to go along with it. On the other hand, love interest Max brings a beige-toned, gay cis-male opposition to Layla’s full-of-glitter life, but the performance itself was anything but bland. 

When casting Max, the producers landed on soft-spoken Louis Greatorex to embody the still-navigating lover. When browsing auditions, many actors seemed to fill the two-dimensional ‘bad guy’ jock trope. Greatorex’s corporate exterior and heartfelt performance allowed for a more realistic portrait of a gay relationship in the modern age, allowing Al-Kadhi’s story to play out without feeling contrived. 

Though Layla’s final transformations may not be fully realized or completed, the film leaves the door wide open for fluidity and potential, offering a sunny future for non-binary youth. 

“This film demands a full life of dignity and love for Layla by creating a new world for them to embody.” 

Building on their excellent, award-winning feature Sin señales particulares (Identifying Features), from 2020, Mexican filmmakers Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero return to Sundance this year with Sujo, the tale of a young man’s journey toward a transformative adulthood amidst the violent landscape of rural Michoacán.

The titular character Sujo is just four years old when his father Josue, a cartel hitman, disappears, leaving the child in the care of his aunt Nemesia, a virtual hermit, living on a mountain above their town. The terroristic power and dominance of the cartel that controls the region (known as Tierra Caliente, a potent, infernal sobriquet) is apparent in the timidity of the townspeople, particularly women, and particularly at night.

Throughout the film, the deadly potential of men and the cruel work they do on each other is often viewed from a distance or kept offscreen. Of course, this curtails any celebration of violence, but it also imparts something like mystery on those works, a dark magic whose evidence, when it comes to light, is both repulsive and sublime. Each wound, that is, each clandestine meeting is an embodiment of an institution so vast, so organic in structure, so complex and obscure that it seems as inevitable and eternal as it is incomprehensible. In this remote place, so far from the city, from help or concern (“These people don’t give a shit about us,” insists one character about the denizens of the capital), the cartel is a condition of life. More than a governing or social entity, it is an angry and suspicious, or paranoid, god and all his creation. The bang of fireworks can never not be mistaken for the reports of the actual weapons that one is certain are always about to open fire.

The imperial persona of the local boss, Aurelio—who is only ever heard or seen from the back, remaining a shadow in light—lends itself to the first part of the film’s tones of fable or myth. His initial orders are that the son must be destroyed for fear of what he’ll become, but, as mentioned, his sage aunt is allowed to raise him on tales of immortal stones and animal guardians in what she hopes is innocence, apart from the violent world. What has Nemesia promised, one wonders, in order have such power, and how has she acquired it? 

Whatever influence she may have, she doesn’t live so far from town that its lights and blaring music won’t reach Sujo, who is also provoked by the temptations and curiosity of adolescence that he shares with his friends Jeremy and Jai. At some point Sujo will want to know more about his father and what legacy he’s left his son, dangerous questions that can only draw him into the orbit of the power that for its own preservation must co-opt and then destroy young men. 

To make one’s entry into even the outer edges of Aurelio’s court requires ambition. The key to survival—always an illusion—is learning how to curb that trait, to accept a subservient position and to never look up. This was Josue’s fatal destiny. But it was his bold capture of Aurelio’s restless horse that first brought him to the boss’s attention. That opening scene provides a trio of possibilities, of paths for Sujo to strive for: master, servant, runaway. If he were to break free, like the horse, what would that look like? What route would he take and where? And is there really any chance some other Josue won’t appear to rein him in and return him to captivity?

Sujo is a deeply moving film of discovery, surprising without flash, but nevertheless visually and aurally stunning, featuring complex, understated performances from a stoic Juan Jesús Varela, in the title role, Yadira Pérez, as Nemesia, and Sandra Lorenzano, playing another guide to Sujo in the film’s final part. Alongside Sin señales particulares, Sujo testifies to the consistently high-quality cinematic and narrative talents of Varela and Rondero. They are definitely a creative team to keep an eye on.

“Sujo” is the winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

In college, one of my required readings was an illustrated volume by Lauren Redniss, which detailed the biographical details and discoveries of Marie and Pierre Curie. The book was a fascinating portrait of the scientists, and took a very technical story to beautiful new heights with graphic, fluorescent imagery. I still flip through its pages simply for the beauty from time to time. 

The documentary Frida, directed by Carla Gutierrez, debuted in Sundance’s U.S. Documentary division, took a similar approach. However, rather than portraying scientific discovery with unexpected beauty, the film took the already beautiful and complex life of famed painter Frida Kahlo and gave life to her well-known work, infusing her takes on beauty into the biographical format of documentary. 

How, you may ask? With authenticity and animation. 

The documentary script was comprised of compiled entries in the voices of friends, lovers, and from Frida herself. Much of the story of Kahlo’s life was told in her own words, drawn verbatim from her own illustrated diaries, allowing the painter’s innermost thoughts to become the soundtrack to her art repertoire, which this film’s production team brought to vibrant life with intuitive animation. 

Every era of Frida’s life got a dedicated visual backing, whether it was historic photographs from that time (each imbued with a bit of beauty and liveliness through tactful colorization), never-before-seen sketches from Kahlo’s diary pages or a reimagined, galvanized version of one of her many instantly-recognisable works of art. 

The documentary tactilely presents hallmark moments in Kahlo’s life through art, from the horrific bus crash that started her trademark self-portraiture when she became bedridden, to a miscarriage that shook her from heavily Rivera-influenced collections back into her own surrealist style. 

This unmatched, imaginative format taken on by Gutierrez brought a new life to the possibilities within the documentary world, delivering reimagined beauty to the biography of a breathtaking woman.