Firstpost at Sundance highlights: From spotlight on Asian, female filmmakers to A24-Amazon battle

Hundreds of thousands of filmmakers, reporters, critics, distributors, producers, cinephiles and stargazers converged in the snowy resort town of Park City, for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with one singular goal: to watch as many movies as possible. Most importantly, watch movies without any awards-season hype or context because no one really knows what they are walking into but they might all come out pleasantly surprised. As the festival nears its end, the buzz would have coalesced around previously unknown titles and filmmakers. This year was no exception.

Now that the awards have been handed out and the festival has officially wrapped up, it is time to take stock of all the trends we witnessed and all the movies you should keep your eyes peeled for when they’re released later in the year — at a local film festival or in cinemas.

So, here is a wrap-up of what went down at Sundance 2019.

Asian and women filmmakers take centrestage

While the calibre of the films were not exactly stronger this year, they were more diverse in terms of content with fresh new independent voices making their mark at the festival. More than half of the 16 films in competition in the US dramatic category were helmed by women. Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency, a drama about a female prison warden (played by Alfre Woodard) struggling with the psychological and emotional costs of capital punishment, took the top honours. In the US Documentary Competition, the Grand Jury Prize again went to women filmmakers — Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang — for their critical examination of a controversial Chinese policy in One Child Nation.

Filmmakers of Asian origin were behind some of the buzziest titles that debuted at Sundance 2019. These include Gurinder Chadha ’s Blinded By The Light (earned a $15 million deal with New Line), Nisha Ganatra’s Late Night (sold to Amazon Studios for $13 million), Minhal Baig’s Hala (worldwide distribution rights picked up by Apple) and Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (picked up by A24). All the four films received more than a warm reception from the audiences at Sundance.

Documentaries outperform dramas yet again

It is not really a secret anymore that Sundance has proved to be a mecca for documentary filmmakers — with the non-fiction offerings often earning better reception than the dramatic films. Just like every year, the documentary line-up in 2019 was stacked with timely explorations of hot-button issues, promising juicy insights into subjects like China’s one-child policy (One Child Nation), Satanism (Hail Satan!), sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson ( Leaving Neverland ), the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal (The Great Hack) among others. It also profiled controversial figures like Harvey Weinstein (Untouchable) and Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes (The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley), and celebrated personalities like jazz legend Miles Davis (Birth Of The Cool), Nobel laureate Toni Morrison (The Pieces I Am) and the formidable Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (Knock Down the House). Some of the more buzzier nonfiction works (like Apollo 11 and The Inventor) are even expected to land Oscar nods next year.

Of course, it was Leaving Neverland that dominated the news cycle. Although it received a standing ovation at its premiere and left many at Sundance stunned, Michael Jackson’s family denounced the film, which included graphic testimony from accusers Wade Robson and James Safechuck.

A24 vs Amazon Studios

A24 has been the chief purveyor of indie gems in the last six years or so. The New York-based studio that brought you Spring Breakers, Under the Skin, Ex Machina, The Witch, Lobster, Moonlight, The Florida Project, Hereditary, Eighth Grade and similar such wonderful titles entered Sundance 2019 with Rashid Johnson’s (adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel) Native Son, Pippa Bianco’s Share and Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco. The studio, which has made hits out of previous Sundance movies, went on to pick up distribution rights to Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir and Wang’s The Farewell. It is important to note that each one of its Sundance 2019 films (bought or sold) have already received glowing reviews.

However, it was Amazon Studios — surprisingly not Netflix — which spent the big bucks and walked away with a bunch of potential hits. It nabbed plenty of buzzy titles like the Mindy Kaling-Emma Thompson comedy Late Night, Adam Driver’s CIA torture drama The Report, Jillian Bell’s charming Brittany Runs a Marathon and Shia LaBeouf’s semi-autobiographical Honey Boy. All these films have the potential to earn Amazon both critical and commercial success.

Veterans, newcomers thrive in character-driven cinema

The films at Sundance 2019 featured a healthy combination of veterans and newcomers. Three roles, in particular, garnered universal praise — the seasoned Alfre Woodard as a death row prison warden struggling to keep her humanity in Clemency, indie darling Adam Driver as a Senate staffer taked with compiling the report on CIA’s use of torture in the wake of 9/11 in The Report and rapper-turned-comedienne Awkwafina’s dramatic turn in The Farewell. Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer’s performance as a history teacher in Luce and 13-year-old Noah Jupe as a young Shia LaBeouf in Honey Boy also deserve a special mention.

And can the Academy please give Naomi Watts an Oscar already? Between Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie, everyone seems to have forgotten one of Hollywood’s greatest Australian imports, who always seems to put in incredible performances even when the films she’s offered aren’t all that credible. The 50-year-old actress showed off her acting chops in two psychological dramas at Sundance 2019 — Alistair Banks Griffin’s The Wolf Hour and Julius Onah’s Luce.

What you should look forward to

Though I missed out on few of the titles that everybody has been raving about, it was still a pretty productive first Sundance for me. So, in no particular order, here are the films you should be excited about when they release later in the year — Animals, Brittany Runs A Marathon, The Farewell, Honey Boy, I am Mother, Little Monsters , Luce, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, One Child Nation, Monos and The Souvenir.