The Sundance Film Festival’s 40th anniversary lineup was announced this afternoon and, as always, you won’t find many big name directors. Sundance is all about discovering new filmmakers.
The most well-known of the bunch is probably Steven Soderbergh, whose latest effort is spookfest “Presence,” starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, and Julia Fox. I can confirm that “Presence” is a horror film, well, actually, a “psychological thriller,” but very much in the vein of horror. The story takes place in a suburban house that’s inhabited by an unknown force. The film was shot in the summer under a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.
“Presence” will debut in the Premieres section alongside another notable title, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Freaky Tales,” which features Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis, and Ben Mendelsohn.
Watch out for A24 and Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man,” starring Sebastian Stan, which has been testing very well. In fact, A24 has three other films at the festival, including Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow,” Rose Glass’ “Love Lies Bleeding”, and Lana Wilson’s doc, “Look Into My Eyes.”
Other films that already have distribution include Focus’ “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” Searchlight Pictures’ “Suncoast,” Amazon’s Frida Kahlo doc “Frida” and NEON’s “Seeking Mavis Beacon” from director Jazmin Jones.
This year there were 17,435 submissions from 153 countries or territories, including 4,410 feature-length films — 82 feature-length films (representing 24 countries) were chosen to be part of the lineup.
A few glaring omissions from the 2024 lineup — where’s Jeremy Saulnier’s “Rebel Ridge”? Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers”? Kyle Mooney’s “Y2K”? Caitlin Cronenberg’s “Humane”? Pamela Adlon’s “Babes”?
The 2023 edition of the fest delivered some marquee films for the rest of the year including “Past Lives,” “Talk to Me,” “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” “Fair Play,” “A Thousand And One,” “Passages,” “Flora and Son” and “You Hurt My Feelings.”
The 2024 Sundance Film festival is set to take place in Park City from January 18-28, 2024,
Having an insurance director is not uncommon in Hollywood. Aging filmmakers, in case a health issue arises, sometimes need to have one. It seems like that’s what might have occurred on “What Happens at Night.”