This year the 2021 Sundance Film Festival was virtual, and its offerings trimmed down from previous years. It included 73 feature films, 50 short films, four Indie Series, 23 talks and events, and 14 New Frontier multimedia projects. We watched 38 of the 73 films, including most of the award winners. Here are some sneak peaks of our favorites to look for in the year to come.
Eight for Silver In a foggy 19th-century village, a wild animal is ripping people apart. But we know it’s not a wolf, like everyone suspects. Eight for Silver deliciously revives and enhances the werewolf genre with Boyd Holbrook (Pierce in Logan) as the Van Helsing-like hunter-come-to-town to avenge the death of his wife and son and rid the countryside of a pervasive evil. Director Sean Ellis succeeds in crafting the mood and setting needed for solid suspenseful horror, and his new take on the lycanthrope myth is both fresh and gross, in a good way. —J.F.
John and the Hole You know you’re in uncharted territory when Michael C. Hall, the star of the murderous hit series Dexter, is the least terrifying thing in a film. This dark fable is a breakout role for Charlie Shotwell, who plays John, the too-quiet son who holds his family captive in a hole in the ground. Director Pascual Sisto’s gaze drifts languidly across the scenery, building the slow, quiet terror of the dreaded certainty of an awful situation. —S.F.
Night of the Kings Truly one of the most inventive films at Sundance, Night of the Kings is a gritty Scheherazade night of endless storytelling set in La Maca, a prison off of the Ivory Coast. Director Phillipe Lacôte balances despair and levity, humanizing the forgotten through a potent blend of African fables, improvisation, and hope—however fleeting. —S.F.
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It A compelling and revealing portrait of an American legend with the ebullience of a teenager. Director Mariem Pérez Riera opens a door to Moreno’s unstoppable ascent to stardom as a teenage actor with an MGM contract, struggling as the industry relegated her to racist “dusky maiden” roles while in a torrid love affair with Marlon Brando. Riera mercifully doesn’t wallow in West Side Story, and instead shares Moreno’s power as an activist and an EGOT-winning performer who continues to break barriers as an 87-year-old with a hit TV show, One Day at a Time. —S.F.
Writing With Fire A triumphant and well-deserved spotlight on the journalists of Khabar Lahariya, India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women—the lowest rung of the caste system. With steely tenacity and persistence, these women place themselves into terrifying situations to interrogate corrupt police officers and potentially violent Hindu Nationalists, with a deft and skill not seen by many top network reporters. Often armed only with a dying cell phone and the truth, they successfully gain justice for forgotten victims. Directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh won the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary and World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Impact for Change. —S.F. v
