Sundance Film Festival opens in London today, boasting four jam-packed days of films, industry discussions and Q&A sessions with top directors.
Now running for over a decade, it brings the best parts of the American festival to the capital, so UK audiences can engage with the independent movies making waves over the pond.
This year’s programme includes intriguing new films and shorts that explore themes including identity, desire, technology and growing up.
There are Q&As with top directors and actors including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carine Adler, Lucy Lawless and Thea Hvistendahl, plus panel discussions on navigating the documentary industry and on directing creative processes.
Clare Binns, managing director of the cinema group, said: “This 11th edition brings a selection of the finest independent films to the heart of London for their UK premieres, coming directly from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.”
Here’s our pick...
Kneecap
Belfast rap band Kneecap are one of the country’s most exciting recent exports. The hip hop trio have gained a dedicated fanbase for singing in Irish about drugs, violence and Republicanism. Now a semi-fictional film about their lives, which won the NEXT Audience Award at Sundance in January, is opening SLFF. The musicians play themselves (they went through a six-month acting bootcamp) and, a little unbelievably, Michael Fassbender stars.
Never Look Away
New Zealand actor Lucy Lawless, who is best-known for her roles in Xena: Warrior Princess and Parks and Recreation, has made a film documenting the wild adventures of award-winning journalist and CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth who covered many of the world’s most dangerous wars. Fearless, outspoken, fun, always dressed like a punk – the film captures her pzazz and zest for life. There’ll be a Q&A with Lawless after the screening.
I Saw The TV Glow
This A24 film, which has been co-produced by Emma Stone, is about a teenager in the late Nineties/early-Noughties who starts to lose track of reality when he watches a late-night horror TV show. The film, which is full of neon-coloured scenes, has been described as devastating and confounding as it explores obsession and growing up.
SLFF Shorts
There are two series of shorts running over the coming weekend. The first, UK Shorts, features seven thought-provoking films from up-and-coming directors, which tell stories about London housing, undocumented workers, being homesick, the infinite nature of the natural world and love.
The second, 40th Edition Shorts, which features six films from high-profile directors including Kibwe Tavares, Emerald Fennell, Riz Ahmed and Romola Garai, celebrates four decades of the film festival, and will include a Q&A session with Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell, whose second film, Saltburn went viral last year.
Rob Peace
Based on Jeff Hobbs’ bestseller, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, this film written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor tells the story of a talented man whose life was cut tragically short. Peace grew up in a poor single parent household in Newark in the Eighties. His father was in prison for murder, his mother worked multiple jobs to send her son to private schools. Happily, Peace was sponsored by a bank executive to attend Yale. He majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and his fortunes looked about to change.
But he lived a double life, making over $100,000 selling marijuana at university, a habit which he continued after leaving school. In the end, despite his brilliant brain and his mother’s best efforts, Peace was killed in a drug-related shooting aged 30. The film stars Mary J. Blige, Camila Cabello and Michael Kelly.
Girls Will Be Girls
This beautiful Indo-French film from Shuchi Talati won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance. It follows 16-year-old Mira, a student at a strict boarding school in the Himalayas, who starts a romance with a fellow student.
Under The Skin (1997)
Under The Skin, Carine Adler’s perceptive meditation on grief, follows two grown-up sisters who process the sudden death of their mother in very different ways. 19-year-old Iris (Samantha Morton) starts to lose control; 24-year-old Rose appears to be coping better. Not only a rare opportunity to see this cult Nineties film on the big screen, this exciting screening will also feature a post-film Q&A with Adler, actors Morton and Rita Tushingham (who played the mum) and producer Kate Ogborn.
Dìdi
This first feature film from American filmmaker Sean Wang, director of the glorious documentary short Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (2023), picked up the US Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance in January. A sweet semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale set in 2008, it follows a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy growing up with the internet.
Sundance London Film Festival, June 6 to 9; picturehouses.com
