The Sundance Film Festival went online once more. It worked out just fine.
After a last-minute change of plans brought on by soaring Covid-19 cases, Sundance made the decision to shutter its physical event in the mountains of Utah and make for the online hills. The infrastructure was already in place from last year and 2022 was supposed to be a hybrid event in any case, with some journalists and viewers logging in from afar. The answer to that initial question, it seems, is yes. The online pivot has resulted in a growth in Sundance’s reach and money followed. Apple TV+ paid a reported $15 million for Cooper Raiff’s coming of age comedy «Cha Cha Real Smooth,» while Sony Picture Classics bought Oliver Hermanus’ «Living» (a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s «Ikiru») for around $5 million and Searchlight spent $7.5 million on the Emma Thompson-fronted sex-positive chamber piece «Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.» On the documentary side, National Geographic cleaned up, buying » The Territory,» a profile of indigenous conservationists in the Brazilian Amazon, along with festival smash-hit » Fire of Love,» about married volcanologists, while Netflix swooped in on «Descendant,» Margaret Brown’s moving account of the search for the last slave ship to reach US shores by the descendants of those who were on board. None of these films were awarded grand prizes from Sundance juries, however. «Nanny,» Nikyatu Jusu’s phantasmagoric tale of an undocumented Senegalese migrant in New York, won in the US Dramatic category, while «Utama,» Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s sparse and beautiful Bolivian eco-parable, won World Dramatic. The US Documentary award went to Ben Klein and Violet Columbus for «The Exiles,» which follows the lives of exiled dissidents and a filmmaker reviving an a project with them, and Shaunak Sen won the World equivalent for «All That Breathes,» a profile of two brothers trying to protect local wildlife amid Delhi’s air pollution crisis. The Festival Favourite Award, selected by public vote, went to «Navalny,» Daniel Roher’s docuthriller about Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny (CNN and HBO Max are distributing). A look at some of the noteworthy Sundance Film Festival titles follows below. «You Won’t Be Alone» Goran Stolevski’s dazzling fable about a body-swapping witch in 19th century Macedonia has much to recommend it. The writer-director’s accomplished debut feature transports us into an agrarian past of calloused tradition and deep-set suspicion, not all which are unfounded. Baby Nevena has been abducted by an evil spirit and raised away from the village. At 16 she becomes a witch and makes contact with the nearby community, only to accidentally kill a woman (Noomi Rapace, «Lamb,» «The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo»). Nevena then assumes her identity; it won’t be her last. The screenplay uses the bones of folk horror to explore patriarchal structures, family and sacrifice, employing this ultimate outsider as a curious mirror to society. The film benefits from beautiful work by cinematographer Matthew Chuang, who captures the idyllic countryside with a sense of wonderment and dread, while an ethereal voiceover threads together the thoughts of this young woman in various guises, striving to find meaning and connection. The film was picked up by Focus Features ahead of the festival and will be released in the US in April. «Cha Cha Real Smooth» Cooper Raiff’s second feature is further evidence that one of the smartest things you can do for your movie right now is cast Dakota Johnson in it. Raiff, writing, directing and starring as listless 22-year-old Andrew, enters the orbit of Domino (Johnson). Andrew’s little brother is in class with Domino’s daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt) and both find themselves on the bar and bat mitzvah circuit (Andrew first as a chaperone then a professional party coordinator). There’s more than a frisson between the two, but she’s engaged, though her fiancé is mostly absent. Johnson brings an air of mystery to every performance, and Raiff harnesses that intractability. Domino seems sad and wise, Andrew sweet and puppy-doggish. What does Domino really want? If Andrew stopped projecting on to her, maybe he’d find out. Raiff’s smart script pokes holes in both rom-coms and coming-of-age narratives, and dares to suggest that life may not be figured out in line with society’s milestones. A bar mitzvah or degree does not a grown-up make. Nor does time always provide emotional intelligence. Snark and self-conscious laughs cede the floor to something satisfyingly earnest, with Johnson on hand to offer some much-needed counsel.
