Sundance 2023 Kicks Off Tomorrow …

It’s almost mid-January which means we’re coming very close to the start of the 45th edition of the Sundance Film Festival. The Park City event is set to begin tomorrow and run until the 29th.

My goal this year at Sundance is to watch as many movies in the selection as humanely possible. I’ll be endlessly sipping on some hot coffee and ready to go with screening after screening.

There are surprises every year at Sundance which is why it’s a foolish game to speculate about what could stand out in this edition. I’m hearing good things about Celine Song’s “Private Lives,” an A24 production that is giving me Linklater/Before vibes.

The festival will open with Rachel Lambert’s “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” which has Daisey Ridley starring in an “Office Space” type dramedy. Ridley plays Fran (she thinks about dying) an office drone whose life is suddenly reinvigorated with the appearance of a new co-worker.

There’s Jonathan Majors as an obsessed amateur bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams.” Cynthia Erivo’s work in “Drift” has also had people buzzing. The Barry Jenkins produced “All the Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.” Jennifer Connelly as a tormented former child actress in “Bad Behavior.” In “Little Richard: I Am Everything” the famous rock and roll singer’s flamboyant live gets dissected.

Of course, dissecting through the Sundance program has always been a futile effort. One can only blindly guess the films that will breakout, especially since 90% of the films programmer are from relatively unknown up and coming filmmakers.

If it’s known filmmakers you’re looking for then there’s John Carney’s “Flora and Son,” Nicole Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings,” Ira Sachs’ “Passages”, Sebastian Silva’s “Rotting in the Sun”, Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool”, William Oldroyd’s “Eileen”, Cory Finley’s “Landscape of Invisible Hand.”

About Sachs’ latest film. He’s probably the biggest filmmaker of this year’s slate. “Passages” was spitballed for last year’s Cannes, it didn’t show up, and again for Venice, where it was nowhere to be found. Here’s an IndieWire capsule on the current buzz:

“Early buzz is that if you’re a fan of Sachs’ work, “Passages” will be an instant statement. The film is about a German filmmaker who begins a love affair with a schoolteacher, only for his husband to begin an affair of his own, sparking jealously across the board. Though it stars Adéle Exarchopoulos and Ben Whishaw, one agent called the lead performance by Franz Rogowski, who is in nearly every scene of the film, “mesmerizing.”

Thats promising.

This will be the first in-person Sundance since the 2020 edition — 2021 and 2022 were both virtual. I’ll be filing Sundance reviews, and the goings on, for the next 10 days. This year’s program should be a very interesting litmus test as to how well the American independent film scene is doing post-COVID.