A virtual edition of the Sundance Film Festival is being launched tonight with the screening of Sian Heder’s “CODA.” An unprecedented and historic moment for the prestigious, near-four-decade-old independent film showcase. You’ll get all the coverage you need here as I’ll be posting reviews and capsules multiple times a day for the next seven days.
Last year, Sundance had the sheer luck of happening just a month before the world shut down due to the COVID-19 virus. It isn’t wrong to state that the next 10 months of the year, audiences and critics had to rely on what premiered at Sundance 2020 to make something out of a movie year that all but shut down theatrically. Films such as “Promising Young Woman,” “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” “Minari,” “Time,” “Palm Springs,” “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” “The Assistant,” “First Cow,” “Dick Johnson is Dead,” “Time,” “Possessor,” “The Nest” and many more dominated.
In reality, this, my 10th Sundance, began two weeks ago as I binge-watched close to 50 of the 70 movies that will premiere at the festival these next seven days. Now here’s the bad news, there wasn’t a single one in the bunch that I would even consider for consideration on my year-end ten best list. Not one. I’m starting to suspect the digital component of this year’s edition may have scared off the quality filmmakers from participating. I mean, do you blame them? Most of the films that will be snatched up in the next seven days will be for streaming purposes via Netflix, Amazon Prime, HULU, or HBO Max.
The industry has not, by a long shot, recovered from the shut . A tough road is surely ahead. However, although my Sundance 2021 experience seems to have started off on the wrong note, there are glimmers of hope. I have yet to catch many of the big titles, and those include “Passing,” “On the Count of Three,” “Flee,” “CODA,” “In the Earth,” “In the Same Breath,” “How It Ends,” “Mass” and “Together Together.”
For the time being, there is still a lot of excitement in the air for lovers of Indie cinema. Sundance has shown great resilience over the years, going through its fair share of ups and downs, this year’s edition may be its biggest challenge yet; how do you pull off an all-digital film festival, in the middle of a pandemic, no less, and succeed in advancing an art form that many believe to be in its direst days of existence?
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