Sure, the joke may be tired, but once again, Film Threat was once again in Park City, Utah…virtually, for this year’s Sundance Film Festival. While having no feet on the ground, we covered a wide variety of Sundance’s features, documentaries, shorts, and international fare. Sabina Dana Plasse was the only one actually in Park City, while the rest of us enjoyed the festival’s offering from afar…and in warmer climates.
A still from Against the Tide by Sarvnik Kaur, an official selection of the World Documentary Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Snooker Club Films.
Against the Tide
Against the Tide tells the tale of two indigenous Koli fishermen, Rakesh and Ganesh, in Bombay. Rakesh struggles to make ends meet as a small boat fisherman, staying faithful to the traditional Koli way of following the tides. Hanna B. says, “Although it does not make a grand declaration about the state of the oceans, India, or the world, Kaur manages to poignantly and effectively show us how bad things really are.”
Jonathan Majors appears in Magazine Dreams by Elijah Bynum, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Glen Wilson
Magazine Dreams
Prone to violent fits, Killian (Jonathan Majors) harbors dreams of becoming a world-renowned bodybuilder. Alex Saveliev says Magazine Dreams is an absolute knockout. He says, “Major’s passionate delivery, coupled with Bennett’s increasingly bewildered reaction, demand to be seen…”
Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel and Rosalie Craig appear in a still from The Pod Generation by Sophie Barthes, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Andrij Parekh.
The Pod Generation
The Pod Generation is pure science-fiction as Sophie Barthes explores the natural progression of the unnatural and the synthetic. Rachel (Emilia Clarke) and her husband, Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), could produce an embryo at the lab and have it grow in a plastic birthing pod provided by The Womb Center. Alan Ng says, “It’s easy to see ourselves in Rachel and Alvy. The story simply plays around with its central premise, ideas of gender roles, and the connection we lost with nature and natural living in urban cities.”
Sundance Films Reviewed by Film Threat
Features:A Thousand and One,, Bad Behaviour, Eileen, In My Mother’s Skin, Infinity Pool, Jamojaya, Magazine Dreams, Persian Decision, Pianoforte, Run Rabbit Run, Shortcomings, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Talk to Me, The Amazing Maurice, The Pod Generation, You Hurt My Feelings
Documentaries: Against the Tide, Bad Press, Deep Rising, Food and Country, Is Anybody Out There, Judy Blume Forever, Little Richard: I Am Everything, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Twice Colonized, Willie Nelson & Family
Short Films: Baba, Ricky, The Family Circus, The Flying Sailor
Here are links to all reviews from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
