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      Sundance, Once a Hotbed for Film Deals, Tries to Find Its Footing

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      The kind of independent movies that the festival showcases have struggled at the box office, spurring worries about what the market would be like this year.The past two years have been a time of major upheaval in the film business — and at the Sundance Film Festival.Between the diminishing audiences in movie theaters, the consolidation of studios and the shrinking amount being spent on content after the streaming giants had their wrists slapped by Wall Street, few were certain about what kind of market there would be for new films at the current Sundance — typically a hotbed of acquisitions for the brightest lights in the independent film world.Even the festival’s opening-night gala last Thursday, its first in person since 2020, felt tempered by the reality facing movies.“These last few years have brought extraordinary challenges for our industry, along with opportunities to respond to the needs of artists and reach audiences in new ways,” Sundance’s chief executive, Joana Vicente, told those assembled. “And as many of this year’s films illustrate, this is a moment when so much is at risk — the health of our planet, human rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression and democracy itself.”Not exactly a celebratory introduction.So on Monday, a collective sigh of relief rose through Utah’s Wasatch mountain range, where, within two hours, two high-profile films that had premiered at the festival found eager buyers. Netflix plunked down $20 million to take the worldwide rights to the thriller “Fair Play,” while Searchlight Pictures spent just under $8 million for the musical-theater-geek mockumentary “Theater Camp,” starring Ben Platt.A day later, Apple TV+ nabbed the musical drama “Flora & Son” for $20 million, and the indie distributor A24 bought the Australian horror film “Talk to Me” for a wide theatrical release this summer.Despite the deals, the state of movies and how audiences will watch them remained an underlying worry.The Race to Rule Streaming TVA Changing Medium: A decade of streaming has transformed storytelling and viewing habits. But we may be starting to hit that transformation’s limits.Netflix: Reed Hastings, one of the founders of Netflix, said that he was ceding his co-chief executive title and becoming the company’s executive chairman.Crime Shows: Just a few years ago, it looked as though old-fashioned police and court procedurals might not make the leap to the streaming future. Now, they aren’t just surviving, they are thriving.AMC’s Troubles: The company has struggled to earn enough from streaming to make up for losses from its traditional cable business. It is a widespread issue in the industry.“Everybody is wringing their hands about the industry,” said Vinay Singh, the chief executive of Archer Gray, a production company whose film “The Persian Version” was shown in competition at Sundance. “A lot of people have lost their jobs. There are cost-cutting measures happening on spending content. People are worried.”Indeed, no one seems to know any longer what kind of movie is worthy of theatrical release and what should be sent straight to a streaming service. Distribution and marketing executives have to figure out not only how to sell a movie to an increasingly fickle audience but also how to navigate the needs of corporate parents, often giant conglomerates whose business priorities are constantly in flux.Plus, there is always the fear of succumbing to “Sundance Fever”— making lightheaded decisions because of the high-altitude fervor of the audience. Over the decades, both streaming services and theatrical distributors have overpaid for films at the festival. Harvey Weinstein spent $10 million for “Happy, Texas” in 1999 only to see it flop at the box office. Focus Features paid $10 million for “Hamlet 2” in 2008, and in 2019, Amazon scooped up three movies for a combined $41 million while New Line paid $15 million for “Blinded by the Light,” only to have it gross $12 million. And that was when the industry was healthier.Now, with so much riding on every decision, a positive response to a film at Sundance is no longer enough to guarantee that it will attract a theatrical distribution deal.Netflix paid $20 million for “Fair Play,” starring Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor.Sundance Institute“I’d like to believe this movie could have done well in theaters,” said Ram Bergman, a producer of “Fair Play,” one of the festival’s most acclaimed and sought-after films. But despite the enthusiasm from the traditional studios, he said, there was little faith that the $5 million R-rated thriller, starring Phoebe Dynevor (“Bridgerton”) and Alden Ehrenreich (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”), could succeed opposite the superhero spectacles without a prohibitively expensive marketing budget.“You are dealing with a lot of the studios that have convinced themselves that these movies cannot really do well in theaters,” Mr. Bergman said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And if a streamer, let’s say Netflix, really wants to get behind it and treat it as one of, like, their high-priority movies, it’s hard to compete.”Therein lies the challenge. Most filmmakers come to Sundance with the expectation that their film will be shown on big screens across the country. The reality is that their movies are exactly the kinds that are performing poorly at the box office: small, inexpensive, complex and lacking movie stars.Add the fact that independent chains like ArcLight Cinemas and Landmark Theatres, which were the traditional supporters of indie fare, have closed and the calculus required to make these films successful becomes even more challenging.Searchlight is counting on fans of Mr. Platt (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and live theater in general to power “Theater Camp,” which celebrates all those who dream of hitting it big on Broadway. The thinking goes that if Mr. Platt can sell out Madison Square Garden, as he has with his one-man show, he can draw audiences to a movie theater. (However, Mr. Platt’s last film endeavor, the adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen,” grossed only $15 million at the domestic box office.)“This is a crowd-pleasing movie, and it was designed with an audience in mind from inception,” said Erik Feig, chief executive of PictureStart, one of the producers of “Theater Camp.” “Yet we didn’t mitigate our risk with presales. We took a flier. We did our research into the market, but comparisons change like every 90 seconds, so you kind of build something for a business model that two weeks later is extinct.”Other buzzy projects did not generate the kind of sales that Sundance, which ends on Sunday, is normally known for. “Cat Person” pleased crowds at the festival, but the critics excoriated it, particularly for veering away from the viral New Yorker short story it was based on. “Magazine Dreams” features an Oscar-caliber performance by Jonathan Majors (“Lovecraft Country”), but he plays a character who spirals into madness and begins carrying a loaded gun — a particularly difficult film to buy in the wake of the two recent mass shootings in California.And the documentary “Justice,” which turns an investigative eye toward Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment and was added to the festival’s lineup at the last minute with much fanfare, disappointed critics, too.“Magazine Dreams,” starring Jonathan Majors, proved to be a difficult sell because of its dark subject matter.Sundance InstituteThe “Justice” filmmakers say they have received new tips, since their film was announced, that they plan to follow up on. It’s just not clear that the film, which was self-funded by the director, Doug Liman, who is best known for glossy action movies, will find a distributor ready to back an incomplete project.Despite the challenges, people were thrilled to be back in person at Sundance.“I feel a deep sense of gratitude to be in this room watching a movie,” Davis Guggenheim said at the premiere of his documentary “Still,” about Michael J. Fox and his protracted battle with Parkinson’s disease.“Theater Camp” brought its actors onstage to perform. The documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi” was supplemented by a live performance by Mariachi Juvenil de Utah, and the cast of “Flora & Son” rapped one of its songs. The screenings were often sold out, and a film’s reception could be judged on the spot by the number of standing ovations it received. Still, buyers were being much more selective.“I think it’s natural that we’re seeing things not happen overnight,” Mr. Singh of Archer Gray said. “I think that’s fine. I actually think it might be a sign of health, because there’s so much stuff in play.”Mr. Feig echoed that sentiment.“It’s definitely a challenging market,” he said. “For each of these movies that has landed buyers, there probably weren’t 25 different offers for each one of these. There may be more of a handful. You just have to kind of build them sensibly knowing what your potential options are.”He also noted the festival’s combination of established names and rising talent, adding with more than a dash of optimism: “This is why Sundance is so amazing — it’s a discovery of fresh new voices. You saw that with ‘Fair Play.’ You see it with ‘Talk to Me.’ You saw that with ‘Theater Camp.’ All brand-new filmmakers, with their very first movie, and they broke through, they made noise, and they found studio partners.” More

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      ‘Geographies of Solitude’ Review: Exploring a Wild Island

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      Part nature film, part biographical portrait, this experimental documentary takes its cues from its setting, an island off mainland Nova Scotia.The closing credits of “Geographies of Solitude” say the film was made in collaboration with its subject, the naturalist Zoe Lucas. But the director, Jacquelyn Mills, might equally have called this experimental documentary — part nature film, part biographical portrait — a collaboration with the setting. Shot on Sable Island, a narrow, wild land strip 100 miles off mainland Nova Scotia, the film takes its cues from the scenery in unusually direct ways.“Geographies of Solitude” is as concerned with the elements of the medium as it is with natural elements. Mills, who also served as the cinematographer and editor, incorporates vignettes that resemble the work of the avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage. We see film exposed in starlight and developed in seaweed, or hear music generated, with the help of electrodes, by the island’s Calosoma beetle.Lucas, who first came to Sable Island in 1971, has spent decades thoroughly cataloging its horses, seals, birds and insects. She is heard in a voice-over clip talking about finding overlooked species. The island’s location also enables her to aid in tracking pollution in the Northwest Atlantic. Alarmingly, she says you can tell what holiday it is by the kinds of balloons that wash up.Seemingly the island’s only human inhabitant, Lucas introduces Mills to the area’s life cycles, lifting part of a horse carcass to show insects feeding off it or explaining how even a small amount of litter can start the growth of a dune. Yet it is to the great credit of “Geographies of Solitude” that it never feels expository: It turns an ecology lesson, and an account of a noble, steadfast, single-minded pursuit, into art.Geographies of SolitudeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘American Masters: Roberta Flack’

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      The ABC reality dating show returns for its 27th season, and the PBS series looks at the singer Roberta Flack.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 23-29. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE BACHELOR 8 p.m. on ABC. This long-running reality dating series is back for its 27th season. This one includes visits to the Bahamas, England, Hungary and Thailand, as Zach Shallcross, a 26-year-old tech executive who has also appeared on “The Bachelorette,” dates 30 women.Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon in “The Promise.”Jose Haro/Open Road FilmsTHE PROMISE (2016) 6:45 p.m. on HBO Signature. Terry George, the director of the acclaimed 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda,” explores another genocide in “The Promise.” Set in 1915 in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, the film follows a love triangle between an Armenian medical student, Mikael (Oscar Isaac); a French-Armenian artist, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon); and an American journalist, Chris (Christian Bale). In her review for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis called the film “a big, barren wartime romance that approaches the Armenian genocide with too much calculation and not nearly enough heat.” But viewers with an interest in the subject matter might still find the movie absorbing.TuesdayRoberta Flack in “American Masters: Roberta Flack.”Leroy Patton/Ebony Collection, via Warner Music GroupAMERICAN MASTERS: ROBERTA FLACK 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). “There isn’t another pop-soul singer around with the versatility and refinement of Roberta Flack,” the critic Stephen Holden wrote in The Times in 1981 after watching Flack perform at Carnegie Hall. Her music has topped Billboard charts with No. 1 singles like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and this special documents her rise to stardom and her experience as a Black woman both in and out of the studio. Along with home movies, archival photos and unreleased music, the documentary includes interviews with Flack herself, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Clint Eastwood, Yoko Ono and Angela Davis.WednesdayNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATES: LSD & THE PSYCHEDELIC REVOLUTION 10:15 p.m. on National Geographic. On Jan. 1, Oregon became the first state to legalize the adult use of psilocybin mushrooms (long known as “magic” mushrooms) amid a rising recognition of their ability to improve the effects of a variety of mental health conditions, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. This timely special dives into exactly how psychedelics are being used to heal modern ills after a decades-long ban.ThursdayTHE CHOSEN (1981) 10 p.m. on TCM. Set in 1940s Brooklyn, “The Chosen” is a coming-of-age story that follows an unlikely friendship between Danny (Robby Benson), a Hasidic Jew, and Reuven (Barry Miller), a more secular Jewish schoolboy. In her review for The Times, Janet Maslin wrote that the film, based on the Chaim Potok book by the same name, is at its best when it “describes the Hasidic culture through Danny and his reactions to the secular world.”FridayIN THEIR OWN WORDS: CHUCK BERRY 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Through a collection of original singles written and performed in the latter half of the 1950s, Chuck Berry shaped the nascent genre of rock ’n’ roll while staying true to his roots and experiences. Using interviews with his widow, son and grandson, along with Berry’s colleagues and other musicians, this documentary follows Berry’s journey from growing up in segregated St. Louis to becoming a foundational figure in 20th century popular music.SaturdayChadwick Boseman in “Black Panther.”Marvel StudiosBLACK PANTHER (2018) 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on FX. “Black Panther” became the highest-grossing film of all time by a Black director when it was released in 2018. Featuring Chadwick Boseman (who died in 2020), Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o and Daniel Kaluuya, the movie follows T’Challa (Boseman), the heir to the throne of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, as he and his allies defend against outside challengers. But the film is about much more than that. “Race matters in ‘Black Panther,’” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times, “and it matters deeply, not in terms of Manichaean good guys and bad but as a means to explore larger human concerns about the past, the present and the uses and abuses of power.” Its highly anticipated sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” is currently in theaters.SundayGOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) 5:50 p.m. on Showtime. This classic is what Janet Maslin described in her Times review in 1997 as a “Cinderella story.” The titular Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he solves a near-impossible math problem left on a chalkboard. The film follows Will as those around him, including a psychotherapist played by Robin Williams, learn of his genius, and he reckons with the direction of his future. “The script’s bare bones are familiar,” wrote Maslin, “yet the film also has fine acting, steady momentum, a sharp eye and a very warm heart.” More

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      ‘The Last Autumn’ Review: The Majesty of Shepherds

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      This observational documentary about an aging farming couple on the Icelandic coast unfolds like an elegy to a life lived off the land.“The Last Autumn” feels like a missive from another planet, even as it chronicles the most mundane activities of terrestrial life: eating, cooking, farming, tending to animals. The ordinary life and routines of the documentary’s subjects, the aging farming couple Ulfar and Oddny, take place against an extraordinary backdrop: a desolate village on the Icelandic coast, nestled amid green mountains that slope into the frigid blue of the Arctic Ocean.The director, Yrsa Roca Fannberg, follows the couple as they prepare for the annual autumnal ritual of herding their sheep down the mountain — though this year’s descent is tinged with doom. Ulfar and Oddny are selling their farm, and their beloved stock will either be sold or slaughtered. The film unfolds like an elegy to a life lived off the land. The camera closes in on the protagonists’ hands as they work meat or wood or fur, driving home the quiet majesty of manual labor.Haunting music, a remote, aerial view and lens flares that tint the image blue and red turn the film’s shepherding sequences into a grand spectacle straight out of a horror or science fiction movie. As Ulfar, Oddny, their grandchildren and their neighbors herd the sheep down the mountain, they become dark figures chasing cloudy-white blobs across a mysterious, craggy expanse, while their walkie-talkie exchanges crackle eerily on the soundtrack.By the time we get to the film’s closing scenes, in which the farmers crack open the skull of a ram and lime its hide, all while exchanging fond reminiscences about the animal, this modest documentary becomes something epic — a microcosm of the eternal cycles of life.The Last AutumnNot rated. In Icelandic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. Watch on Film Movement Plus. More

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      ‘Only in Theaters’ Review: A Family Business in Changing Times

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      Laemmle theaters have fed generations of Los Angeles cinephiles. This documentary looks at their past and present.Is it said that the comic poet Ogden Nash, noting the hiring practices of a certain founder of Universal Pictures, once wrote the couplet “Uncle Carl Laemmle/has a very big faemmle.” Carl Laemmle made no secret of his nepotism, and frankly it’s hard to argue against its results. His son, Carl Laemmle Jr., for instance, produced visionary 1930s monster movies including “Dracula” (1931), “The Mummy” (1932) and “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935). One of the elder Laemmle’s cousins, like Laemmle a European immigrant, was William Wyler, who became a protean American director.There are still Laemmles in the movie business, and any Los Angeles cinephile will avow that the family is doing God’s work. “Only in Theaters” tells the story of Laemmle Theaters, a set of art houses that dot the Los Angeles area.The small theater chain was founded by two nephews of Carl Laemmle Sr., who turned it over to Robert Laemmle, who then passed the baton to Greg Laemmle‌, his son. The theaters once hosted the West Coast premieres of powerhouse international films by the likes of Ingmar Bergman and François Truffaut, who became friends of the Laemmle family.This documentary’s director, Raphael Sbarge, had his eyes opened to these movie houses when screening a film at one of them. His decision to chronicle the theaters and the family that runs them coincided with a major turning point for the business. By 2019, Greg Laemmle contemplated selling the movie houses. There’s footage of him agonizing over the idea. And then the coronavirus pandemic arrived, which compelled Greg to make a substantial sacrifice.Ultimately the movie is as scattershot as it is enthusiastic. When the French director Bertrand Tavernier is mentioned, the screen displays a shot of the French director Bertrand Blier. Repetitive paeans to the theatrical experience (from interviewees including the critic and historian Leonard Maltin, and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay) are offered willy-nilly. But the narrative about the theaters’ present-day fight for survival is undeniably compelling.Only in TheatersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Ability to Say Yes’ to Stories Long Neglected on the Screen

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      Like so many anxious filmmakers the week before the start of the Sundance Film Festival, Erica Tremblay was tucked inside a dark room in Los Angeles, prepping the final sound mix for her feature debut, “Fancy Dance.”Ms. Tremblay has one of those quintessential Sundance tales: abandoning her career in publishing at age 40 to pursue filmmaking, specifically to tell stories centered in her Seneca-Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma. Her first short film, “Little Chief,” premiered at Sundance in 2020. Her script for “Fancy Dance” was accepted into the 2021 Sundance Lab, and with the help of the Sundance Institute, she secured financing to make the movie. Production concluded in September, and just three months later, her film was chosen out of 10,000 submissions to be shown at this year’s festival, which begins Thursday.None of it would have happened without her financiers. One, Nina Yang Bongiovi of Significant Productions, has been financing indie films like “Fruitvale Station” and “Passing” since 2013. Another, Tommy Oliver, the founder and chief executive of Confluential Films, is relatively new to the finance game after spending the past decade producing and directing his own films.“The thing that I like the best about working with Tommy is that I had creative autonomy,” said Ms. Tremblay, who has been working in one of Mr. Oliver’s bungalows on his Confluential campus since Thanksgiving. “Even though it’s hard to trust first-time filmmakers, whatever he saw in this, he was like, let’s do it. He has been there for the project but also been there for me as a creator. He was somewhat of a resident therapist in that regard.”Mr. Oliver and his wife, Codie Elaine Oliver, created the popular TV series “Black Love.”OWNMr. Oliver is one of a number of financiers of color with films debuting at the festival whose mission is to elevate underrepresented voices with financial investments, including Charles King, Luis A. Miranda Jr., Kimberly Steward, Doug Choi and Ms. Yang Bongiovi.It’s a far cry from how things used to be and a sign that diversity efforts have moved from the periphery of the business more toward its center.“When I started in the business, in the ’80s, I was so used to being not only the only Asian American but the only minority at the table ever,” said Chris Lee, a former president of production at Sony’s TriStar Pictures. He is executive producing the Justin Chon film “Jamojaya,” which received financing from Starlight Media, a Los Angeles-based Chinese financier that backed “Crazy Rich Asians.” “Now, you want an A-list director, you can go to John Chu, you can go to Destin Daniel Cretton, you can go to Justin Lin. There’s so many choices to put people in front of the camera now that people didn’t think of before.”Still, just appearing at Sundance is not the endgame. The true standard for success for these financiers will be how these movies perform at the festival and if they are bought by distributors. Alexis Garcia, from the independent studio Fifth Season, previously known as Endeavor Content, said distributors have told him the festival’s lineup of films this year doesn’t look commercial and it could be a soft year for acquisitions.Should that be the case, that could be a setback for the financiers who are just getting started.“When you are working with directors who are from an underrepresented group, there is actually more at risk, because if it doesn’t work, it just perpetuates the mythology,” said Kevin Iwashina, Fifth Season’s senior vice president of documentaries, who helped finance the Sundance doc “Going Varsity in Mariachi” and fully financed “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World,” a documentary about the cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas subway attack in Tokyo. “And so decisions become that much more precise. There is more at risk than just financial capital.”Mr. Oliver is staking a lot in the four films he has headed to Sundance, in something of a coming-out party for Confluential Films. Mr. Oliver began the operation in 2013 as a label for his own productions — he is also a writer and director — but has recently expanded his ambitions. Mr. Oliver hired Charlotte Koh, formerly of Searchlight Pictures, as Confluential’s president in 2021 and has dedicated the company to financing projects by creators of color. Goldman Sachs helped raise $100 million to $150 million that Confluential will use for operating and production costs.Best known for creating the popular OWN series “Black Love” with his wife, Cody Elaine Oliver — the two own the show and all its ancillary products: podcasts, live events and merchandising — Mr. Oliver’s ambitions run from indie films to prestige pictures to helping finance studio movies.In addition to “Fancy Dance,” the producer has invested in “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” a documentary about Ms. Giovanni, the American poet, and the narrative features “Young. Wild. Free.” and “To Live and Die and Live.” The upcoming Netflix movie “The Perfect Find,” starring Gabrielle Union, is also being produced by Confluential after the company optioned the novel by Tia Williams. “We have the ability to say yes, and not just say yes, but to look at what the makeup of those projects are, and that’s significant,” said Mr. Oliver. “What I’m really excited about building is something that is sustainable to support, not just one director, but a bunch of directors. We can do something now where we have a different type of seat at the table.”Luis A. Miranda Jr. invested in the documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi.”Sundance InstituteMr. Miranda is using the money he made from the theatrical hit “Hamilton” — created by his son, Lin-Manuel Miranda — to invest in young artists, many of whom are from underrepresented groups and communities. After receiving an unsolicited email from the producer James Lawler, Mr. Miranda invested in the Sundance documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” which depicts high school Mariachi contests popular in the border towns in Texas. It’s one of the better-known documentaries scheduled to debut in competition. To Mr. Miranda, a veteran political strategist, the film was the perfect combination of storytelling and politics and showed where he wants to put his money.“We are a huge part of the audience of movies but not a large number of the ones that are financing films,” he said in an interview, referring to his Latino roots. “And I know that there are a lot of voices out there who have not been able to tell their stories. I know that because my son was one of them. If I would have had the money then, Lin-Manuel would not have had to go through three years of rewriting and knocking on doors. So if I can make young, talented people’s lives easier in telling their stories, I will do that.”Ms. Yang Bongiovi said finding financing for films featuring people of color remains challenging. She recalled her experience with “Passing,” from the writer and director Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson (“Thor: Ragnarok”) and Ruth Negga (“Loving”). The film was bought by Netflix for a healthy sum out of Sundance in 2021 and was lauded by critics. Yet getting it made was “practically impossible,” she said, “and that was not that long ago.”Nina Yang Bongiovi says that when more people of color are financing films, they can work together to support projects.Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images“I was told, ‘You have two women of color starring in it, that’s challenging,’” Ms. Yang Bongiovi said. “And then I remember telling folks, ‘Tessa Thompson is a Marvel superhero. She’s Valkyrie!’ But it just didn’t equate. It was a reminder that we still have a long way to go.”The growing number of financiers like her from underrepresented groups has Ms. Yang Bongiovi feeling hopeful. It means that instead of competing for projects, they can work together, reduce their individual risk and contribute the money needed to make these films.“Because there are more multicultural financiers and producers, we are teaming up,” she said. “We don’t see each other as competitors. We’re like, ‘Hey, we’re allies. We got to go in together, to force the tide to come through for us.’”Ms. Yang Bongiovi and Mr. Oliver worked together on “Fancy Dance,” while Mr. King and Mr. Oliver both backed “Young. Wild. Free.,” a film directed by Thembi L. Banks about a high school student whose life turns when he is robbed by the girl of his dreams. Mr. Oliver and Ms. Yang Bongiovi are also supporting “To Live and Die and Live” from the director Qasim Basir.“Young. Wild. Free.,” directed by Thembi Banks, is being backed by Mr. Oliver and Charles King, the founder and C.E.O. of the media company Macro.Sundance Institute“To me, that’s where you see real change, how we have found ways to partner and come together to move entire ecosystems,” said Mr. King, founder and chief executive of Macro, an eight-year-old company that has helped finance films like “Judas and the Black Messiah” with Warner Bros. and “Sorry to Bother You” with Ms. Yang Bongiovi. The latter was sold to Annapurna Pictures out of Sundance in 2018.“When I launched Macro, it was with a vision for building a multibillion-dollar media company that is going to have global impact, but also economically empower our communities and help to shape culture,” he said. “That companies like Confluential and others who’ve raised capital, who are financing, that they’re doing it as well, and then to be able to do things together, that’s fantastic. That’s only creating more opportunities for all of us.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Independent Lens’ and ‘Night Court’

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      A documentary about racial reparations in the United States airs on PBS. And NBC reboots the 1980s and ’90s sitcom “Night Court.”Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 16-22. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: THE BIG PAYBACK (2023) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In 2021, Evanston, Ill., became the first American city to approve a compensation program intended to address historical racism and discrimination, a significant step for proponents of racial reparations, an issue that has long been frozen by political concerns. This documentary looks at how the measure passed, paying particular attention to a former alderman, Robin Rue Simmons, who was a primary architect of it, and to its place in the context of the larger conversations about race in the country.JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021) 9:30 p.m. on TNT. Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for his portrayal of Fred Hampton, the Illinois Black Panther Party leader who was killed in an infamous 1969 police raid, in this drama. Directed by Shaka King, the film is told from the perspective of William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), an informant who helped the F.B.I. orchestrate Hampton’s killing. The result is a “tense, methodical historical drama,” A.O. Scott said in his review for The New York Times. “The script,” Scott wrote, “by King and Will Berson, is layered with ethical snares and ideological paradoxes, and while King’s fast-paced direction doesn’t spare the suspense, it also makes room for sorrow, anger and even a measure of exhilaration.”TuesdayMelissa Rauch and John Larroquette in “Night Court.”Jordin Althaus/NBCNIGHT COURT 8 p.m. on NBC. Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) picks up the gavel once held by the actor Harry Anderson in this reboot of “Night Court,” the 1980s and early ’90s NBC sitcom that followed a young judge, Harry Stone (Anderson), working the night shift in a Manhattan municipal court. The new version of the show casts Rauch as Stone’s daughter, Abby, who lands in her father’s old gig (the latest example of a nepo baby?) and has to contend with a cast of bizarro characters. One of them is Dan Fielding, a now-former prosecutor played by John Larroquette, reprising his role from the original series.WednesdayDIRTY OLD CARS 10:03 p.m. on History. Car enthusiasts and neat freaks alike might take some pleasure in this new series, which follows a group of vehicle restorers who bring moldy, rusted-out old cars back to life. (It’s more “Revive My Ride” than “Pimp My Ride.”) The first episode includes a pair of classic American cars: a 1981 Chevrolet Camaro and a 1972 Ford Maverick.ThursdayFrom left, Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”A24EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) 4:30 p.m. on Showtime. “An exuberant swirl of genre anarchy” is a label A.O. Scott used to describe “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in his review for The Times. That swirl turned out to be a potent mix: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s universe-bopping tale of a laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) fighting evil in a multiverse has turned into an awards-season heavy hitter. Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, one of her co-stars, won Golden Globes last week for their performances in the film. And it’s set to be a wonderfully weird presence in the Oscars discussion.FridayGAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES 11 p.m. on HBO. The sharp sports commentator Bomani Jones returns for a second season of his HBO series. The show mixes commentary, comedy and reporting — it’s something like a “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” for sports. The first season included episodes about nepotism among N.F.L. coaches, the draw of historically Black colleges and universities for many sports recruits, and the N.F.L. draft.GLASS (2019) 5 p.m. on FXM. The filmmaker (and twist-maker) M. Night Shyamalan is set to return to theaters early next month with a new movie, “Knock at the Cabin.” For a refresher on Shyamalan’s style, consider revisiting “Glass,” which brings together characters from two of his previous movies — “Unbreakable” (2000) and “Split” (2016) — for a superhero story with horror trappings.SaturdayRUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) 5:45 p.m. on TCM. Judd Hirsch, the veteran stage and screen actor, leaned into a juicy supporting role recently in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” in which he plays an oddball great-uncle who briefly shows up and injects some idiosyncratic, chaotic energy into the titular family’s home life. Hirsch played a father dealing with a different kind of familial chaos in this 1988 drama directed by Sidney Lumet. The plot centers on Arthur (Hirsch) and Annie (Christine Lahti), a husband and wife who for years have been on the run from the F.B.I. because of their involvement with extreme antiwar activities during the Vietnam War. Their children, Danny (River Phoenix) and Harry (Jonas Abry), have been brought up to play along with the fugitive life — until Danny, the elder sibling, starts to wrestle with a desire to break free of it. In her review of the film for The Times, the critic Janet Maslin wrote that the screenplay is uneven, but that “the actors are often so good that they’re able to be real and touching even when the material sounds strained.”SundaySissy Spacek in “Carrie.”United ArtistsCARRIE (1976) and CHRISTINE (1983) 4:45 and 7 p.m. on AMC. Cars and teenagers. These are two things that can be frightening and bewildering — especially when mixed — both in our own world and in Stephen King’s fictional ones. And both factor heavily into these two King adaptations. Up first, Brian De Palma’s take on King’s debut novel, “Carrie,” about a bullied 16-year-old (Sissy Spacek) who learns she has supernatural powers and uses them for revenge. Next, John Carpenter’s adaptation of King’s “Christine,” which follows another socially challenged teenager, Arnie (Keith Gordon), who buys a psychotic car. More

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      Film Forum Director Karen Cooper to Step Down After 50 Years

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      Karen Cooper, who took over the nonprofit cinema in 1972 and transformed it into a $6 million-a-year operation, will step down in July after five decades.When Karen Cooper took over Film Forum in 1972, the theater was a projector and 50 folding chairs in a loft on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, showing what were then known as underground films. The annual budget was $19,000. Cooper projected the films — sometimes herself — on a single 16-millimeter machine no larger than a microwave.“I’d say to someone, ‘I show independent films,’ and they’d say, ‘You mean pornography?’” Cooper, 74, recalled with a laugh in a recent conversation at the nonprofit art house cinema’s offices, now located across the street from the theater in Greenwich Village.But now, Cooper, who has become synonymous with Film Forum — which has grown into a four-screen space with a $6 million-a-year budget and an influence that reaches far beyond New York City — is stepping down from the director role she’s filled for half a century, the organization announced on Monday.“I’ve thought about this for years,” said Cooper, whose last day will be June 30, though she will remain on staff as an adviser. “I wanted to have a smooth transition.”Succeeding her will be Sonya Chung, 49, the theater’s deputy director, who began working at Film Forum in 2003 as the director of development. Chung, who has a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Washington, in Seattle, left in 2007 to write and publish two novels (she also taught literature and writing for three years at Columbia University and for nine years at Skidmore College, both in New York). She returned in 2018 as a programming consultant and a member of the advisory committee, and was hired as deputy director in February 2020.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.Jostling for Best Picture: Weighing voter buzz, box office results and more, here’s an educated guess about the likely nominees for best picture.“Sonya has great taste and a way of articulating it,” Cooper said. “It immediately occurred to me when I met her — unbeknownst to Sonya — that she had the ability to be the director of the theater.”Cooper has been the director of Film Forum since 1972.Emma Howells/The New York TimesCooper was a newly minted 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she took over the theater founded by two film buffs, Peter Feinstein and Sandy Miller, in 1970. Over her 50-year tenure, she built a beloved cultural institution that has introduced the work of now-prominent filmmakers to American audiences, earning the affection of critics and patrons alike.She has led the theater through three relocations — Film Forum moved to its current space on West Houston Street in 1989 — and oversaw a $5 million expansion and renovation in 2018 that upgraded the seating, legroom and sightlines in all screening rooms and added a fourth, which increased the venue’s capacity to nearly 500 seats.Cooper said she was most proud of working to broaden the scope of Film Forum’s programming, introducing audiences to major German filmmakers of the 1970s like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. She was also honored to have programmed the New York premieres of ambitious documentaries such as “Asylum,” Peter Robinson’s 1972 look inside the psychiatrist R.D. Laing’s therapeutic community of people with schizophrenia living together in a group home in London; and Spike Lee’s “Four Little Girls” (1997), about the children killed in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.It’s the meticulously curated slate of new films — which Cooper, Chung and the artistic director Mike Maggiore map out on a dry erase board in the cinema’s offices as far as six months in advance — that serves as part of the draw for Film Forum’s approximately 200,000 visitors each year, along with a robust lineup of classic films programmed by the repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein, a concession stand menu of decadent baked goods and a robust lineup of talkbacks with filmmakers.Chung says the biggest challenge facing Film Forum, which is one of the few theaters regularly to feature independent movies in New York, is competition from streaming services. It can be tough, she said, to convince people who’ve become used to watching at home to bundle up, take the subway to the theater and pay $15 for a night out.One solution, she said, is creating a memorable experience that people can’t get anywhere else. They recently hosted Q. and A. events with the filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb, who directed the documentary “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” and the film’s subject, the book editor and her father Robert Gottlieb; as well as with the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose dark tale about the life of a donkey, “EO,” has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. Both events sold out, she said.“Especially post-pandemic, when we have so much streaming overload, younger people are antsy for an IRL experience,” she said, using the acronym for “in real life.”Chung also wants to cultivate a younger and more diverse audience, with a particular focus on people of color from outside the theater’s white, more affluent neighborhood. For the last several years, she has created a young members program and developed partnerships with cultural and community-based organizations like Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring nonprofit for young people from underserved communities in New York City; and ArteEast, a nonprofit that presents work by contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas.And now, starting this month, the theater’s internship program — which places three college students each semester in roles in the theater’s repertory program, outreach and administration departments — will be paid.“We decided we should pay them in order to attract a more diverse group of young people to be able to work here,” Chung said.As for Cooper, a longtime resident of the far West Village who walks to work each day, she will remain an active member of the organization’s programming team. She’ll continue to represent Film Forum at the Berlin and Amsterdam film festivals. She intends to maintain her schedule of watching at least 500 films per year. She’ll continue to focus on fund-raising for the nonprofit, which raises approximately $3 million of its operating budget each year.“I never thought I’d stay here 50 years,” she said. “But where would I go? What do they say — the hedgehog knows one thing, the fox knows many things?“I’m a hedgehog,” she said. “I know one thing — how to run a movie theater.” More