The Wealth of Geeks Sundance 2024 Preview: Can’t Hardly Wait!
The Sundance Film Festival has a worldwide reputation for premiering some of the most evocative and conversation-starting films of our times. Both US and International films receive a main stage to showcase their passion in hopes of distribution. Originally the festival’s goal endeavored to showcase American-made films and make the case for filmmaking in Utah. The festival also brought focus to independent films which could easily get lost in the distribution rounds.
Started in 1978 by Sterling Van Wagenen – then the head of Robert Redford’s production company Wildwood Enterprises – the festival featured classics like Deliverance, Midnight Cowboy, and Mean Streets. What started as a way to foster more entertainment tourism, has turned into a 45 year old institution. In 2023 winners included A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One and an underrated fave, Theater Camp. This year at Sundance 2024 the competition look steep with several exciting entries that we can’t wait to see!
1. Agent of Happiness
Filmmakers have become increasingly creative when it comes to crafting documentaries that are as entertaining as they are informative. While conducting surveys investigating Bhutan’s illusory “Happiness Policy”, Bhutanese government agent, Amber, discovers “yes” and “no” may not be the most suitable answers. Especially as he discovers that Happiness can have many different layers and factors. This emotional road trip will hopefully spark some much needed inner dialogue.
2. Ponyboi
River Gallo’s name naturally invokes a sense of authenticity through their work as an intersex activity. The 2023 Focus Features documentary Every Body showed the world that many of our strongly held beliefs about the human body are wrong and our ignorance is dangerous. The documentary follows the lives of three intersex persons – Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel and Gallo.
It’s a beautifully informative movie that introduces the viewer to intersexism and the people living with it. Part of Gallo’s process as a filmmaker included a short film version of Ponyboi, a story of a young intersex prostitute trying to heal and find love in the big city. The feature-length version will star Gallo alongside internet boyfriend Dylan O’Brien.
3. Luther: Never Too Much
Growing up my household was Gospel only save for one exception: Luther Vandross. My mom nearly had me convinced that Mr. Vandross would gladly answer to “step daddy” and was my long lost stepfather who just had to tour all the time.
In the meantime his soulful tones, his vocal interpretation of achingly relatable lyrics and the raw power he held naturally made him an icon in my eyes. Luther: Never Too Much pays loving tribute to a performer that was lost too soon.
4. A Real Pain
While Jesse Eisenberg’s When You Finish Saving the World missed the mark as an adaptation, the movie showed promise. Originally a remake of his podcast/play of the same name, the attempt to move a futuristic, decades-hopping story just wasn’t successful, but the writing of the family dynamics was solid and something that Eisenberg excels at.
In A Real Pain, cousins Benji (Kieran Culkin) and David (Jesse Eisenberg) embark on a trip through Poland to honor their beloved and passed grandmother. Along the way the two reconcile past hurts, present conflicts and future hopes.
5. Desire Lines
A “desire line” is an unplanned path that forms as a result of traffic–quite literally a beaten path that indicates travelers who chose their own way. It feels like a perfect encapsulation of the trans experience.
This feature-length essay film by Jules Rosskam marks the director’s Sundance 2024 debut. The film employs performance situations, historical fiction about bathhouses, tales of sexual encounters and more. This experimental film explores the space where sexuality, gender and desire exist and collide.
6. Little Death
Jack Begert is known for his musical and visceral brand of storytelling working alongside notable musicians like Dominic Fike, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat and more.
For his debut feature, Begert collaborates with David Schwimmer, Gaby Hoffmann, Fike, Jenna Malone and more to tell a mysterious story. The tagline simply states: A middle-aged filmmaker on the verge of a breakthrough, two kids in search of a lost backpack and a small dog a long way from home. These seem like simple premises, but this director along with this cast means the execution will extend beyond imagination.
7. A New Kind of Wilderness
A new documentary feature from Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, A New Kind of Wilderness explores what happens when a family’s bubble of reality bursts. The Paynes live on a small farm in the remote Norwegian forest, isolated and self-sufficient. An internal tragedy causes the entire family’s priorities to be reset as each member embarks on new challenges towards their venture into the unknown.
8. Brief History of a Family
An exciting feature debut for Jianjie Lin, A Brief History of Family not only tackles the definition of family, but also the class system in a post-one-child Chinese world.
Wei and Shuo become fast friends in school and soon Shuo becomes a fixture at Wei’s home. While the lifestyle certainly seems more stable to Shuo, it turns out there are dark truths about Wei’s family that lurk just beneath the surface. This stylish and thought-provoking drama is sure to usher in a new appreciation for modern Chinese cinema.
9. Rob Peace
Rob Peace was a quiet revolutionary figure who grew up impoverished in New Jersey. He attended Yale University to study molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Though he earned a scholarship, he also earned over six figures selling dope on the streets.
It’s a true rags to “hood riches” yet cautionary fairytale. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a thoughtful adaptation of the original biography by Jeff Hobbs.
10. Love Lies Bleeding
We love Katy O’Brian and Sundance darling Kristen Stewart, and in Love Lies Bleeding, their love for each other drives the thrilling plot.
Stewart plays Lou, a gym owner who falls hard for O’Brian’s Jackie, a bodybuilder trying to level up. Unfortunately as most devil may care relationships go, reality begins to settle in and Lou’s family begins to pose a threat to the couple. The film marks Rose Glass’s latest debut after Saint Maud and her debut Sundance 2024 film.
11. Seeking Mavis Beacon
Growing up in the Mavis Beacon era proved key for a young Black girl in the Midwest. Seeing a Black woman at the forefront of such an important skill was nearly as impactful as watching Lynn Thigpen as “Chief” on Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? Little did I know that the woman behind Mavis Beacon remains a mystery to this day.
The Haitain model went missing for decades, but thankfully Jazmin Renee Jones works alongside Olivia McKayla Ross to uncover the truth. The woman behind Mavis Beacon will not be forgotten if Jones has anything to say about it.
12. Stress Positions
John Early is the king of having a lot “going on.” This time as Terry Goon, a recent divorcee squatting in his ex’s apartment alongside his Moroccan model nephew who also just happens to be in a full leg cast.
Early’s pithy, often irreverent humor provides the perfect vehicle for a film about a man who just… has a lot going on! Though Theda Hammell is no stranger to Sundance – she wrote and directed the episodic My Trip to Spain – this will be her first full length feature and directorial debut. Hammell is sure to become a new and interesting voice in comedy.
13. Thelma
The only thing worse than unscrupulous spam callers ringing someone up happens when they manage to take advantage of an innocent person.
Thelma tells the story of Thelma Post, an elderly woman who gets duped by a phone scammer and decides to take her fate and future into her own hands. At 93 this feat of revenge can seem daunting, but leave it to veteran character actor June Squibb to meet the role with grit, pluckiness and humor. The cast also includes a couple of our indie faves, Parker Posey and Clark Gregg.
14. Suncoast
Laura Chinn will make her Sundance 2024 debut with this charming, coming-of-age, semi-autobiographical film. Nico Parker plays Doris, a young woman with a preoccupied mother and a brother whose health issues are becoming more real by the day. The film also stars Laura Linney, Woody Harrelson and really places an emphasis on Doris’s point of view. Nico is a rising talent and this will be a breakout role for the young actress.
15. àma Gloria
àma Gloria was coauthored and directed by Marie Amachoukeli. The film tells the story of Gloria, a nanny to six-year-old Cleo. Gloria must suddenly return home to Cape Verde when something happens to her family there.
One of 2022’s Sundance winners, Nanny also told the story of a young woman who becomes a nanny in order to make enough to bring her own son to the United States. I mention the Nikyatu Jusu feature as it shines a spotlight on relationships between nannies, their children and the extraneous families. Nanny dealt in the supernatural, while àma Gloria has a more grounded but just as thoughtful approach.
16. Veni Vidi Vici
Think Cabin in the Woods mixed with Ready or Not and you’ll be about halfway to the plot of Veni Vidi Vici.
The Maynard clan are billionaires and they are bored. The patriarch loves to hunt but draws the line at animals. What else could be walking around for the family to shoot at? Thankfully in a world free from consequences, the Maynards are able to wreak havoc and take zero accountability.
This biting satire may make that next gaze in the mirror a bit too uncomfortable.
17. Layla
They say it’s better to have love and lost, but Layla (Bilal Hasna) may have other ideas. She’s an Arab drag queen who seems to be allergic to love, but after finding it – even briefly – she’s learning that in order to receive love, you first have to find it within. Layla is a beautiful queer love story told in an unconventional environment yet it’s still completely relatable.
18. Sebastian
There’s little that’s more important to a writer than research and Max (Ruaridh Mollica) takes it to an extreme for his new book. He employs the alter ego of “Sebastian” to engage in prostitution and truly understand the characters he writes. Sebastian offers a positive outlook without sensationalizing the participants.
19. Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat
Every now and again there comes a film telling a story that’s too fantastical to be true and too true to be a fantasy. We’re talking Africa, Jim Crow, American jazz music, Congo’s premiere prime minister? The CIA?? This story of espionage, and political intrigue is so bizarrely connected that it’s impossible not to watch.
20. Love Me
A film about inanimate objects who fall in love that’s not Wall-E would normally be a hard sale for me, but having those objects embodied by Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun does sound intriguing. This Sundance 2024 spotlight film is the unique and creative debut feature from Sam and Andy that explores love during the time of extinction.
21. A Different Man
Imagine looking like Sebastian Stan and hating it! Or at the very least it making your life miserable. That’s what’s happening to Edward (Stan), an aspiring actor who makes a big decision that changes the trajectory of his life and… he doesn’t handle it well. This psychological thriller is sure to have viewers appreciating current looks.
22. I Saw the TV Glow
The ever-versatile Justice Smith joins another Sundance 2024 feature playing Owen in this supernatural horror by Jane Schoenbrun. Owen gets introduced to a possibly sinister late-night show that reveals mysteries hidden under the fuzzy glow of the TV set. What lies beneath will both frighten and fascinate Owen as he tries to make sense of it all.
23. Freaky Tales
To describe Freaky Tales poses a challenge; it feels like something to experience. A series of interconnected stories starring the gone-too-soon Angus Cloud, Normani, Pedro Pascal, and a whole host of actors that likely weren’t on your BINGO card, but here we are. At the very least the idea of these four stories: fighting skinheads, rap battles, henchman redemption and basketball – intersecting to a common goal is exciting and sure to keep viewers on their toes.
24. The American Society of Magical N-groes
Starring Justice Smith and David Allen Grier, a movie with this title would seem to raise a Bagger Vance-like side-eye. However, debut director Kobi Libii is ready to deliver a smart, satirical take on the inescapable character trope.
In the film Aren (Smith) plays a demure and diminutive young man whose dream is to stay out of the way. He’s then propositioned to become a real-life Magical N-gro and while it’s intriguing, he decides there are some changes that should be made. In playing subservient he learns to find and then demand his inner strength.
25. Will & Harper
Will & Harper offers a unique Sundance 2024 experience that follows Will Ferrell and Harper Steele – two lifelong friends who reach a defining moment in their relationship. Harper is coming out as a trans woman and he and Will decide to mark the occasion with a cross country roadtrip. Vulnerabilities are exposed, allyship is tested and together the two find the beauty in their friendship, their environment and themselves.
