We’re going back! To Sundance, that is. The 2023 Sundance Film Festival returns to Park City, Utah, this year – January 19 – 29. There will be movies (both virtual and in-person) to watch, brunches to host, events to attend, connections to make, snow to trudge through, and lines to stand in – just like the old days! Remember those?
In anticipation of our triumphant return, the SAGindie staff browsed this year’s lineup to select the movies that have topped our personal must-see lists. Check them out below, and we’ll see you on the mountain!
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Darrien’s Picks:
FANCY DANCE
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Erica Tremblay. Following her sister’s disappearance, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child’s white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact.)
TO LIVE AND DIE AND LIVE
(NEXT, Directed by Qasim Basir. Muhammad returns home to Detroit to bury his stepfather and is thrust into settling his accounts, but Muhammad’s struggles with depression and addiction may finish him before he finishes the task.)
SHORTCOMINGS
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Randall Park. Following Ben, Miko, and Alice as they navigate a range of interpersonal relationships and traverse the country in search of the ideal connection.)
THE PERSIAN VERSION
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Maryam Keshavarz. When a large Iranian-American family gathers for the patriarch’s heart transplant, a family secret is uncovered that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past. Toggling between the United States and Iran over decades, mother and daughter discover they are more alike than they know.)
Eliza’s Picks:
EILEEN
(Premieres, Directed by William Oldroyd. Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel.)
FANCY DANCE
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Erica Tremblay. Following her sister’s disappearance, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child’s white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact.)
THEATER CAMP
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman. When the beloved founder of a run-down theater camp in upstate New York falls into a coma, the eccentric staff must band together with the founder’s crypto-bro son to keep the camp afloat.)
THE TUBA THIEVES
(NEXT, Directed by Alison O’Daniel. From 2011 to 2013, tubas were stolen from Los Angeles high schools. This is not a story about thieves or missing tubas. Instead, it asks what it means to listen.)
GOING VARSITY IN MARIACHI
(Premieres, Directed by Alejandra Vasquez & Sam Osborn. In the competitive world of high school mariachi, the musicians from the South Texas borderlands reign supreme. Under the guidance of coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed team must turn a shoestring budget and diverse crew of inexperienced musicians into
state champions.)
Colin’s Picks:
MAGAZINE DREAMS
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Elijah Bynum. An amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection as his relentless drive for recognition pushes him to the brink.)
EILEEN
(Premieres, Directed by William Oldroyd. Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel.)
THE STROLL
(U.S. Documentary Competition, Directed by Kristen Lovell & Zackary Drucker. The history of New York’s Meatpacking District as told from the perspective of transgender sex workers lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.)
CASSANDRO
(Premieres, Directed by Roger Ross Williams. Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre.” In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world but also his own life.)
THE ACCIDENTAL GETAWAY DRIVER
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Sing J. Lee. During a routine pickup, an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage at gunpoint by three recently escaped Orange County convicts. Based on a true story.)
WHEN IT MELTS
(World Cinema Dramatic Competition, Directed by Veerle Baetens. Many years after a sweltering summer that spun out of control, Eva returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. In the dead of winter, she confronts her past and faces up to her tormentors.)
Shefali’s Picks:
FAIRYLAND
(Premieres, Directed by Andrew Durham. Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and ’80s, chronicling a father-daughter relationship as it evolves from an era of bohemian decadence to the heartbreaking AIDS crisis. Based on the best-selling memoir ‘Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father’ by Alysia Abbott.)
POLITE SOCIETY
(Midnight, Directed by Nida Manzoor. Aspiring martial artist Ria Khan believes she must save her older sister, Lena, from her impending marriage. With the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.)
ROTTING IN THE SUN
(Premieres, Directed by Sebastián Silva. After filmmaker Sebastian Silva goes missing in Mexico City, social media celebrity Jordan Firstman begins searching for him, suspecting that the cleaning lady in Sebastian’s building may have something to do with his disappearance.)
SHORTCOMINGS
(U.S. Dramatic Competition, Directed by Randall Park. Following Ben, Miko, and Alice as they navigate a range of interpersonal relationships and traverse the country in search of the ideal connection.)
FREMONT
(NEXT, Directed by Babak Jalali. Donya works for a Chinese fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Formerly a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, she struggles to put her life back in order. In a moment of sudden revelation, she decides to send out a special message in a cookie.)
RYE LANE
(Premieres, Directed by Raine Allen-Miller. Two twenty-somethings reeling from bad breakups deal with their nightmare exes and connect over the course of an eventful day in South London.)
NAM JUNE PAIK: MOON IS THE OLDEST TV
(U.S. Documentary Competition, Directed by Amanda Kim. The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today’s world.)
WHAT ARE YOUR 2023 SUNDANCE MOVIE PICKS?
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