Sundance Film Festival (Park City, Utah)

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      Sundance Film Festival: ‘Freaky Nights’ Is the Hot Ticket

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      “Freaky Tales” with Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis and Normani, gets a raucous premiere as Hollywood turns out in force for the festival.Hello from the Sundance Film Festival in frigid Park City, Utah, where your faithful Projectionist will spend the next week answering important questions like: Are we about to discover the next great filmmaker? Is it possible to look chic in a puffer jacket? And wait, there’s a Neon party tonight? Why didn’t I get an invite?The festival is celebrating its 40th edition this year, but it’s a Hollywood 40, meaning some effective nips and tucks have kept Sundance seeming fresh and vital even as the industry it’s a part of has changed considerably. In the ’90s, every independent filmmaker dreamed of launching their career at this festival as the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh had. Now, with the independent-film market in a precarious position, talent comes to Sundance to schmooze and say, “What I’d really like to do is make a limited series.”And hey, the festival programs those now, alongside the documentaries, shorts and narrative films that remain Sundance’s bread and butter. Some movies have premises so outrageous that you could only find them here: In “Love Me,” Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun play a buoy and satellite who fall in love, while “Sasquatch Sunset” casts Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough as an unrecognizable pair of Bigfoots and, I’m told, plays things utterly straight.Other movies evoke past Sundance classics. On Thursday, I watched “Ghostlight,” about a troubled family that finds solace by staging Shakespeare: It reminded me of the Sundance hit “CODA,” down to the third-act performance that had audiences weeping. Then I booked it to the documentary “Girls State,” a distaff sequel to Apple TV’s 2020 Sundance pickup “Boys State.” The new one follows hundreds of teenage girls as they try to craft a mock government.The opening night’s hottest ticket was “Freaky Tales,” a gonzo anthology starring Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis and the pop singer Normani. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who’d previously brought their films “Half Nelson” and “Mississippi Grind” here, “Freaky Tales” follows four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland that all tend to climax in outrageously bloody scenes of revenge. Whenever the red stuff spurted, the audience hooted.Though Sundance has introduced a virtual portion to its festival that will be available next week, people remain eager to attend in person. Pascal, one of Hollywood’s most overbooked actors, made the briefest of trips to Park City just so he could attend the raucous “Freaky Tales” premiere. “Ghostlight” directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson were even more determined to make it to the festival: Though they were still shooting their film just three months ago, thanks to fleet work from their editors, the two were able to submit a first cut to Sundance in early November, just four days after they’d wrapped.It helped, O’Sullivan said, that she had another ticking clock that demanded quick work: She shot the film while eight months pregnant.“I said we had a hard out,” she joked at the premiere. More

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      ‘The Persian Version’ Director Has Always Lived in the In-Between

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      In her new film, Maryam Keshavarz finds both gravity and levity in the struggle to reconcile her Iranian heritage and her life in the United States.When Leila, the central character in the new comedy-drama “The Persian Version,” sashays across the Brooklyn Bridge and into a Halloween party carrying a surfboard and wearing a burkini — niqab on top, bikini on the bottom — while Wet Leg’s cheeky anthem “Chaise Longue” plays, it’s clear that what’s to come will be a boundary-pushing take on straddling cultures that are at odds in the real world.Maryam Keshavarz wore a similar burkini costume once upon a time, and her semi-autobiographical film — which spans decades and moves between Iran and the United States — won an audience award and a screenwriting prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it had its world premiere. The film, written and directed by Keshavarz, will have a limited theatrical release in the United States on Friday.“The reality is, I’ve never really followed the rules,” Keshavarz, 48, who was born in New York to Iranian parents, told me in a video call earlier this month. “It’s also the reason that probably I’ve been able to get to where I am, because there’s no real path for us, is there? There’s no straight path if you’re an immigrant kid, if you’re queer, if you’re an outsider.”Keshavarz was an adult when she grasped that immigrants and women could be directors. “I thought that was stuff for white Americans,” she said. “Even the idea that we have a right to tell our story and to take up space is huge.”Women who follow the rules “would be crushed,” she came to understand. “It’s a society that doesn’t allow us to get what we need to survive and flourish. So we have to take things into our own hands.”Here are edited excerpts from our conversation. Light spoilers ahead.Your film is arriving at a time when there’s heightened attention on the oppression Iranian girls and women face: The imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, who focuses on women’s rights in Iran, recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, and this month, a 16-year-old girl entered a subway car in Tehran with her hair uncovered and was later dragged out unconscious. How does your film fit with this larger picture?Of course, we are so grateful that the international voices have been used to amplify what’s going on in Iran in the last year, but this has been an ongoing issue ever since I can remember, we’ve been fighting against in Iran — all the morality police and, at every level, women, because they’re the symbol of the Islamic culture with the hair-covering and everything — have been on the forefront of pushing back.If you look at my film, my mother in the ’60s, she’s fighting against cultural norms to have her place in society. It’s not a battle that’s won in a day. And particularly young women, I’m in awe of them. The young girl who plays my mother at 14 (Kamand Shafieisabet), she lives in Iran, and she could have stayed in America, but she decided to go back after Sundance. She said, “It’s my duty to fight in my country.”More than anything, this is an international issue. The reason it’s caught fire around the world is because it’s not just about Iran. We also have issues here in the U.S. I think finally we understand that there’s more of an interconnectivity in our struggles.A scene from “The Persian Version.” Niousha Noor, in green, plays the mother, Shireen, who is based on Keshavarz’s own parent.Yiget Eken/Sony Pictures ClassicsKamand Shafieisabet has the film’s most dramatic moments. What was casting like for you, since you were essentially casting your own family?Everyone is Iranian. I was really dedicated to have actual Iranians. It didn’t matter what diaspora they were in, and it was so meaningful for them because all of us grew up in different countries.[Shafieisabet] lived and breathed this character, and she joked, “I’m giving birth to a child, and I’ve never kissed a boy.” She’s never acted. She was literally a freshman in high school. I wanted someone that was that innocent to play my mother, because my mother truly was at that time.When my mother met her — and my mom’s very verbose — I said, “Mom, you’re so quiet. What’s wrong?” And she said, “You know what? I never realized how young I was until I saw this girl. I was her age. I was a child. I was always struggling so hard to survive. I never had a moment to reflect.”Why is it important for you to elevate the stories of those who exist in that very particular space between cultures?To me, that’s quintessentially what it means to be American. You come to America and you’re allowed in many ways to continue your original national identity and still become American, and preserve those two things side by side. Also I wanted to take back the narrative of what it meant to be American. But more than anything, when you’re from two different places, you’re a bit of an outsider of both. And you do see the absurdity of both sides in some ways, and you understand it probably more than others would. So in some ways you become a translator of both cultures.Even Leila being a lesbian who gets pregnant by a man, as you did, plays in that in-between space.My family was so confused. That’s really the truth. Because I’ve been so adamantly with a woman and had been married and queer. We went out for drinks, and I was about to wimp out. Then the father of my daughter was like, “You’ve got to tell them.” I was like, “I’ll send them email.” And I did blurt it out just like that. Then they thought he was gay. They were so confused. The story of my life. As confused as me. [Laughs]That was very hard for me even to say “bisexual” for a long time. I was like, no, I’m queer. Also because of politics. It’s important that we have a sense of gay rights, regardless of the spectrum that you’re on. I’m from an older generation; my daughter’s generation has a completely different perspective on it. It was very important for me just to be adamant about our political rights as a community. But I realized life is more messy than the political movements allow us to be.Layla Mohammadi as Leila and Noor in a dancing scene from the movie. Yiget Eken/Sony Pictures ClassicsYou balance a lot of opposing themes: duality of identity, of course, but also comedy and drama, as well as different cinematic tones as we move through time and locales. Was it a struggle to bite off so much?I struggled with two things. One was the balance of the comedy and the drama. Another was to have an epic tale that was so intimate. That was very important for me, not to get lost in the period detail but to know that this is a story of essentially three women and to really ground it. And to do that, I decided that each character would have a different genre that’s reflective of who they are: So that the daughter is more ’80s-’90s pop. The grandmother is a tall teller of tales, as all grandmothers are, so she gets a spaghetti western. And then the mother, who, even though she’s created a new identity, is still traumatized by an old past — what you typically think of Persian films, which is like [an Abbas] Kiarostami sort of film.For me, it was important that all three women get to tell at least their version of the story. When I was writing it, I couldn’t crack the story until I realized my mother was the other writer. Because she came to this country to write her own future, rewrite her life. Once I got that, everything else fell into place. I realized all the men are just a chorus to our stories. And typically, it’s the other way around.On that note, do you really have eight brothers?In real life, I have seven brothers. In the story, I have eight. But I did grow up with one bathroom. I’m very traumatized to this day. I just have to have my own bathroom. [Laughs]The chaos of many siblings adds levity for sure. The movie, despite tackling serious topics, is also largely a comedy packed with big food scenes, choreographed dance sequences and tons of music, including Wet Leg at the start, but also Cyndi Lauper and Gagoosh.Certainly when I was a kid, Iran was synonymous with terrorist. And that was not my experience of Iran or Iranians. I’m like, “We’re so lazy. How can we be terrorists? We like to take long naps after lunch.” But honestly, it’s not the people I know; it’s not the culture and the celebration, the music, food. That’s a real political thing, too, what aspects of our culture are shown. I mean, if we can dehumanize people, it’s so much easier to invade them and to kill them and to take their oil and to create nameless wars, faceless wars. So I think the reason I went into cinema post-9/11 was to create a more nuanced view of our world. This film is in some ways a culmination of my entire career. I don’t believe in all this divisive rhetoric, and I feel like humor is a way that we can connect. More

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      ‘2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Films’ Review: Small Bites’

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      From animated partygoers to real families embracing a name, this basket of goodies includes seven titles, among them comedy, tragedy and documentary.Every year, features from the Sundance Film Festival can become critical favorites — “Past Lives” is a notable example — but the fest’s shorter works can fade away. The “2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour” brings a seven-film omnibus to cinemas across the country, and Kayla Abuda Galang’s “When You Left Me on That Boulevard” alone is reason enough to see it.This lovely and funny short portrays a Filipino American family’s Thanksgiving get-together through the eyes of Ly, an introverted teenager who’s a daydreamer even before she gets stoned with her cousins. It’s a film that contains both bustling images and delicate vibes, inner-voice stillness and subtle soundscapes, all of which can flourish in a movie theater.Galang seems especially drawn to dialing into private spaces in social situations, for example when Ly talks about her boyfriend as if to herself, until a cut reveals she’s surrounded by family members. Ly can sound endearingly oblivious, but instead of having the actor play that tendency for cheap laughs, the writer-director picks up on the warmth in the room.Galang also looks out for different ways of showing how the family is together, whether it’s karaoke — the short’s title comes from a song Ly’s aunt belts out — or a cool split shot of kids and parents hanging out on either side of a wall. If past Sundance collections are any guide, this short might preview a feature, and Galang’s immersive exploration of inner and outer spaces makes one eager to watch what comes next.Family bonds weather transitions in a number of the shorts. “Parker,” from Catherine Hoffman and Sharon Liese, the sole documentary in this selection, teases out a rich, arduous history of Black experience in a decision by members of a family in Kansas City to adopt the same surname. Interviews with the parents and their children show the love, and the fears and trauma, that can be inscribed in a name, and the peace of mind and unity promised by their choice.Resembling vérité nonfiction, Crystal Kayiza’s “Rest Stop” follows a Ugandan-American mother traveling with her three children to join her estranged partner. Kayiza dwells on scenes that a feature might relegate to a montage, the better to sit with feeling unsettled and tired and scattered, but pushing ahead to another future. Liz Sargent’s “Take Me Home” is also a portrait in becoming, as an overwhelmed, cognitively disabled woman (played by Sargent’s real-life sister, Anna) sends an S.O.S. to her sister after years of relying on their ailing mother.Comedies are well-represented in the collection: “Pro Pool” feels like a trailer for itself as it churns through retail workplace humor, while the stop-motion animation “Inglorious Liaisons” fondly portrays a goofy teen party, wherein people have light switches for faces. But Aemilia Scott’s shrewdly written, well-cast opener to the program, “Help Me Understand,” turns a focus group of women testing detergent scents into a nervy experiment in hung-jury dynamics. Shifting gears from satire to a double-edged dissection of point of view, it’s a snappy way of prepping viewers for the multiplicity of voices to follow.2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film TourNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Which Sundance Movies Could Follow ‘CODA’ to the Oscars?

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      Jonathan Majors in “Magazine Dreams” and Teyana Taylor in “A Thousand and One,” among others, could make the journey from Park City to the Dolby Theater.Over the past few decades, the Sundance Film Festival has premiered Oscar winners like “Manchester by the Sea,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “Minari,” but it wasn’t until last March — when the crowd-pleasing “CODA” won best picture — that a Sundance movie went the distance and claimed the top Academy Award.It may be a little while before Sundance pulls off that feat again, as the Oscar nominations announced last week featured no movies from the festival in the best-picture race; indeed, the only 2022 Sundance film to make a dent in the top six Oscar categories was the British drama “Living,” which earned a best-actor nod for Bill Nighy. But could the movies that just premiered at the 2023 edition of the festival, which concluded on Sunday, help recover some of Sundance’s award-season mojo?The program certainly offered a fair amount of best-actor contenders who could follow in Nighy’s footsteps. Foremost among them is Jonathan Majors. The up-and-coming actor already has a crowded 2023: He’ll soon be seen facing off against Michael B. Jordan in “Creed III” and playing the supervillain Kang in Marvel properties like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Loki.” And that slate just got even stronger with the Sundance premiere of “Magazine Dreams,” a troubled-loner drama in which Majors plays an amateur bodybuilder on the brink of snapping. Had the film been released a few months ago, Majors would have made this year’s thin best-actor lineup for sure, but the right studio buyer could take advantage of his newfound Marvel momentum to muscle this formidable performance into the next race.The Projectionist Chronicles the 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.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.Other best-actor candidates that could come from the current Sundance crop include Gael Garcia Bernal, who could earn his first nomination for playing a gay luchador in the appealing “Cassandro,” and David Strathairn, who toplines the modest, humane “A Little Prayer,” about a father deciding whether to meddle in his son’s extramarital affair. One point in Strathairn’s favor is that his film will be released by Sony Pictures Classics, which has managed to land a well-liked veteran in the best-actor lineup three of the last four years (Nighy for “Living,” Anthony Hopkins for “The Father” and Antonio Banderas for “Pain and Glory”).The top Sundance jury prize went to A.V. Rockwell’s “A Thousand and One,” which could earn best-actress attention for Teyana Taylor, who plays a defiant ex-con resorting to desperate measures to keep custody of her son. (Still, the film’s planned March release from Focus Features will require some end-of-year reminders for forgetful voters.) Also buzzed about was Greta Lee, who could be in contention for A24’s “Past Lives,” about a Korean American woman reunited with her former lover; the film was so rapturously received that a best-picture push could be in the cards.Will any of the year’s biggest-selling films crash the Oscars race? Netflix spent $20 million to acquire the well-reviewed “Fair Play,” which pits the “Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor against the “Solo: A Star Wars Story” actor Alden Ehrenreich as co-workers whose affair curdles once she gets promoted. It’s not the kind of starry auteur project that usually gets a big end-of-the-year campaign from Netflix, but if this battle of the sexes becomes a zeitgeisty hit, the streamer may give it a shot. Apple TV+ paid $20 million for the musical comedy “Flora and Son,” from the “Once” director John Carney, while Searchlight shelled out more than $7 million for the Ben Platt vehicle “Theater Camp.” At the very least, these two comedies feature delightful original-song contenders.Sundance films could make the biggest splash is in the best-documentary race: All but one of this year’s Oscar-nominated documentaries first debuted at the January festival, and even if you stripped Sundance of its star-driven narrative films, the strength of its docs would still preserve its status as a top-tier world festival.This year, the most-talked-about docs were the award winners “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” about a storied Black poet; the Alzheimer’s drama “The Eternal Memory”; “Beyond Utopia,” which features compelling hidden-camera footage of North Koreans trying to defect; and “20 Days in Mariupol,” about the Russian siege of a Ukrainian port city. More

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      “The White Lotus” Dance Remix is the Hottest Club Song

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      Variations of the spine-tingling intro music have played at rave parties, Australian music festivals and Sundance.On a recent club night in Chicago, a high-pitched woman’s voice that sounded like a gobbling turkey — dropping acid — brought everyone to the dance floor. Some people swayed, twisting their hips and twirling their hair in a hypnotic lock step. Others pumped their fists and jumped up and down. One woman let out a high-pitched scream, as though she’d just spotted Chris Hemsworth at the grocery store.The tune was the EDM dance remix of “Renaissance (Main Title Theme),” the wordless title music that plays over the opening credits of Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” the hit HBO Max series about a group of wealthy people who vacation at the luxury resort — and the people who serve them.Since the second season, set in Sicily, began in late October, remixes of the oscillating harp notes, written by the Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, have spread across TikTok, SoundCloud and in the EDM community. Remixes are now playing in clubs and at music festivals. Last weekend, at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Diplo unveiled his own mix at 1:30 a.m. “Renaissance” is a variation on the series’s Season 1 theme, “Aloha! — Main Title Theme,” also by Mr. Tapia de Veer,  which features drums and bird songs (that season was set in Maui) and won an Emmy for best original main title theme music. “Aloha” had the same choppy melody, though it did not take off on TikTok or spawn a club following like “Renaissance.”What’s different about Mr. Tapia de Veer’s new beat? Here’s how the song became a crowd-pleasing anthem.Wait, doesn’t everyone nowadays just skip past a show’s theme song?Aah, the “skip intro” button debate. When it’s the intro song to “The Big Bang Theory?” Yes. When the composer has won an Emmy? Your loss.When did the song take off on TikTok?After the first episode of the new season dropped Oct. 30, someone realized: The high-pitched yodeling was danceable. And unlike the Season 1 variation, “Renaissance” climaxes to a throbbing EDM beat near the one-minute mark (the entire song runs 1 minute and 38 seconds long).Over the next few months, thousands of videos flooded the platform, with users setting the ethereal earworm to their own kooky dance moves, frying eggs and lawn manicuring.Why can’t I get it out of my head?Edward Venn, a professor of music at Leeds University in England, broke it down for British GQ in the fall: “It’s the way that the initial minor chord moves to the major — offering a sense of hope, of respite — only for it to slide back, continually and unstoppably, to the threatening implications of that minor chord,” he said.So how did it get into clubs?For weeks, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram users have been sharing videos of partygoers dancing ecstatically as the twisted operatic notes soar through basement bars and packed clubs.The rapper and “Euphoria” star Dominic Fike closed a set at the Terminal 5 music venue in Manhattan with the eerie melody in December, the latest instance of a tune from TV becoming a party staple (we see you, Wednesday Addams and your jerky, infectious “Goo Goo Muck” dance).Where else has it shown up?It turns out that the operatic discothèque sound bath — punctuated by human screeches — works just as well on a large scale as a small one. The Killers opened several stadium shows in December with the song.Days before the show’s finale, a music festival in Australia played the song, to which many in the crowd of thousands of bucket-hatted and fanny-packed revelers tried to vocalize — erm, sing? — along.A heart-pounding remix of the ululating anthem even made an appearance at the end of a “Saturday Night Live” skit last weekend, played by another pop culture phenom: the killer robot doll M3gan, the newly minted camp horror icon with some dance moves of her own.What are some of the best remixes?One popular mash-up features Jennifer Coolidge and her meme-ready rant: “Please, these gays. They’re trying to murder me.”  Another, unveiled by the Dutch DJ Tiësto at a Miami Beach club on New Year’s Eve, makes you want to bang your head until you can’t feel your face. And there is a luscious tech house beat by Westend that will have your stereo shaking.“It captured the feral nature that’s inside all of us and that especially comes out on the dance floor,” said Tyler Morris, a New York-based DJ and music producer who spins under the name Westend. “Every time I play it in my DJ sets, it’s a showstopper.”How do you dance to it?Fist pumps, waving arms and synchronized — or not — flailing limbs, seem to be popular. The robot — or even a fast-moving zombie imitation à la “The Last of Us” — might work well here.Any word on the theme music for Season 3?While the show has been renewed for a third season, there’s no word yet on the next resort destination. The only thing that might be more popular than the EDM “Renaissance”? A K-pop version. More

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      ‘A Thousand and One’ and Nikki Giovanni Documentary Win at Sundance Film Festival

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      Other prizes go to “Scrapper,” about a British girl and her estranged father, and “The Eternal Memory,” about a Chilean couple coping with Alzheimer’s.A mother-son drama and a documentary about the pioneering poet Nikki Giovanni won grand jury prizes at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday.Taking the top honor in the U.S. dramatic competition, “A Thousand and One,” the debut feature of A.V. Rockwell, stars the singer and dancer Teyana Taylor as an ex-con who kidnaps her boy from foster care. The festival jury — made up of Jeremy O. Harris, Eliza Hittman and Marlee Matlin — described it as “work that is real, full of pain, and fearless in its rigorous commitment to emotional truth born of oppressive circumstances.”The U.S. nonfiction award went to “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” from the directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. The jury (W. Kamau Bell, Ramona Diaz and Carla Gutierrez) described Giovanni, now 79, as “a singular, unapologetic voice,” and said the film’s “strong directorial vision illuminates the joy and the raw reality of the Black experience.”In the world cinema dramatic competition, the top award was given to the British film “Scrapper,” Charlotte Regan’s tale of a smart 12-year-old (Lola Campbell) on her own after the death of her mother and the return of a father (Harris Dickinson of “Triangle of Sadness”) she barely knows. “A charming and empathetic film full of integrity and life,” the jurors Shozo Ichiyama, Annemarie Jacir and Funa Maduka wrote, adding, “‘Scrapper’ is a poignant study on grief.”The Chilean documentary “The Eternal Memory” took the world cinema nonfiction prize. Directed by Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”), the film follows a husband and wife as they deal with his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Augusto Góngora is a well-known Chilean TV presenter, and his wife, Paulina Urrutia, an actress-director who once served as the country’s culture minister, is now caring for him. “This film opened our hearts by bringing us closer to the meaning of life and death,” the jurors Karim Amer, Petra Costa and Alexander Nanau wrote.The Festival Favorite Award, voted on by audiences, went to Christopher Zalla’s “Radical,” starring Eugenio Derbez as an elementary school teacher along the U.S. border. Other Audience Awards went to the documentaries “Beyond Utopia” (from Madeleine Gavin, about North Koreans trying to defect); “20 Days in Mariupol” (Mstyslav Chernov’s account of being trapped with other Ukrainian journalists during the Russian invasion); and “Kokomo City” (D. Smith’s look at Black transgender sex workers).Two films about Iranians abroad also won over audiences: “The Persian Version,” Maryam Keshavarz’s comedy-drama set amid a family reunion in New York, and “Shayda,” Noora Niasari’s drama about a mother and her abusive husband in Australia.The festival concludes Sunday. More

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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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      ‘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