All-night bidding wars are as a lot a staple of the Sundance Film Competition as snow drifts and skinny air. The mountaintop gathering highlights the most effective of indie movie and shines a light-weight on the subsequent era of Tarantinos and Soderberghs. This 12 months seems totally different. Sundance will go digital in 2021 because of COVID-19. However that doesn’t imply that studio executives and brokers aren’t going to be working the telephones simply as furiously. Right here’s a have a look at movies which have the products to encourage streaming providers and indies to go toe-to-toe within the hopes of touchdown the subsequent “Palm Springs” or “Promising Younger Girl.”
Coda
Director: Sian Heder
Solid: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur
Gross sales agent: CAA/ICM
Buzz: This drama a couple of lady who’s the one listening to individual in her deaf household is claimed to be emotionally stirring and business, two issues that ought to resonate with potential consumers. A prize opening-night slot doesn’t harm.
Summer time of Soul
Director: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
Gross sales agent: Cinetic Media
Buzz: The documentary concerning the Harlem Cultural Competition, a summer season live performance collection that unfolded in 1969, marks the directorial debut of Questlove. Unsurprisingly, given the filmmaker’s musical bona fides, it boasts archival footage of performances by rock, soul and R&B greats like Stevie Marvel and the fifth Dimension. The occasion, generally known as “Black Woodstock,” didn’t obtain substantial protection from mainstream media of the time. “Summer time of Soul” may change that.
Passing
Director: Rebecca Corridor
Solid: Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland
Gross sales agent: Endeavor Content material
Buzz: It may be difficult to drag off film diversifications of beloved books. However Rebecca Corridor may make a compelling case with “Passing,” a cinematic retelling of Nella Larsen’s novella about two African American girls who can “go” as white and select to dwell on reverse sides of the colour line in 1929 New York.
How It Ends
Director: Daryl Wein, Zoe Lister-Jones
Solid: Zoe Lister-Jones, Cailee Spaeny, Olivia Wilde, Fred Armisen, Helen Hunt
Gross sales agent: Endeavor Content material
Buzz: After the chaos of 2020, an apocalyptic thriller could also be precisely what audiences are searching for to flee the pandemic doldrums. “How It Ends” takes place in the course of the closing day of Earth as one lady ventures by means of Los Angeles to make it to her final social gathering.
On the Rely of Three
Director: Jerrod Carmichael
Solid: Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Tiffany Haddish
Gross sales agent: UTA
Buzz: Comic Jerrod Carmichael’s directorial debut has a hell of a premise. The darkly comedic drama facilities on two greatest associates with two weapons and a pact to finish their lives when the day is completed.
The Sparks Brothers
Director: Edgar Wright
Gross sales agent: CAA
Buzz: How can one rock band be enormously fashionable and likewise vastly neglected? Edgar Wright, the director of cult favorites reminiscent of “Shaun of the Lifeless” and “Child Driver,” explores that ethical quandary in a documentary that revolves round brothers Ron and Russell Mael.
The Blazing World
Director: Carlson Younger
Solid: Udo Kier, Carlson Younger, Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw
Gross sales agent: Endeavor Content material
Buzz: This horror-fantasy — a couple of lady haunted by the reminiscence of watching her sister drown once they have been kids — is visually arresting and might be the type of elevated style fare that studios like to snap up at Sundance. Early phrase is that Younger combines a trippy premise with tense storytelling, and a killer rating from a member of Foster The Folks.
On the Prepared
Director: Maisie Crow
Solid:
Gross sales agent: Cinetic
Buzz: This have a look at a bunch of highschool college students in El Paso who’re coaching to grow to be cops and border brokers hits on sizzling button subjects like youngster separation and immigration. What makes “On the Prepared” so fascinating is that most of the youngsters that Crow profiles are Latinx and dwell just a few miles from the border, forcing them to grapple with these points in shocking methods.
Coming House within the Darkish
Director: James Ashcroft
Solid: Daniel Gillies, Erik Thomson, Miriama McDowell, Matthias Luafutu
Gross sales Agent: CAA
Buzz: in recent times, Sundance has seen a surge in status horror-thriller titles that each devastate audiences and elevate style filmmakers to A-list standing (Ari Aster’s “Hereditary, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s terminally bleak “The Lodge”). “Coming House within the Darkish” is just not about leap scares, slightly an exploration of human brutality set towards a household highway journey hijacked by strangers.
El Planeta
Director: Amalia Ulman
Solid: Amalia Ulman, Ale Ulman, Nacho Vigalondo, Zhou Chen, Saoirse Bertram
Gross sales Agent: UTA
Buzz: Multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman has such momentum headed into Sundance that competing gross sales brokers expressed jealousy over not having the ability to display screen the movie upfront. In “El Planeta,” she tells the sadly modern story of a mom and daughter projecting a picture of glamour and upward mobility in Spain. The pair live meal to meal, grifting their method by means of well mannered society, on the verge of eviction and attempting to remain one step forward of their crushing actuality.
R#J
Director: Carey Williams
Solid: Camaron Engels, Francesca Noel, David Zayas, Diego Tinoco, Siddiq Saunderson, Russell Hornsby
Gross sales agent: Endeavor Content material, WME
Buzz: Consider “R#J” as “Romeo and Juliet” for Gen Z. The newest retelling of Shakespeare’s basic, which options BIPOC actors, takes place solely by means of cell telephones. “Wherefore artwork thou Romeo?” He’s on Instagram, in fact.
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