Damian Writes About Stuff

(and my first)

I’d wanted to go to the Sundance Film Festival for a while now, and since this was the last one taking place in Park City, its home for almost 50 years, a group of movie friends and I pulled the trigger to make it happen.

What’s the deal with Sundance? Independent filmmakers showcase their movies here in hopes of being purchased by distributors for wider release, whether through a theatrical run or a streamer. It has a long history, now in its 47th year, and was started by actor, director, and producer Robert Redford. It’s named after the Sundance land Redford owned, which itself was named after his character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where he played the latter. There was a bittersweet vibe throughout the festival because of the recent passing of Redford last September and because this was the final time the festival would be hosted in Park City. Starting next year, it will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Before each movie, a retrospective narrated by Redford was played, showing highlights from the festival over the years in Park City and some of the iconic films that premiered here.

I was just a normie at the festival and didn’t manage to snag a pass, so I mostly relied on buying single tickets and wheeling and dealing in various Reddit threads and WhatsApp groups. I managed to get tickets for most of the movies I wanted and pre-bought tickets to the some of the award winner screenings at the end of the festival. I didn’t end up waitlisting for anything, but demand seemed high for many of the films, with some screenings so full that even some ticket holders couldn’t get in, let alone anyone on the waitlist.

I ended up seeing ten movies over the span of three days, getting to experience a wide variety of program categories. Before I went, I saw tweets making fun of some of the screening locations, like the Yarrow being in a hotel conference room, joking that the peak of cinema was happening in a strip mall in the middle of nowhere. Which, I guess, is one of the contributing reasons the festival is moving. There were also some weird signs, like the Egyptian Theatre, the historic home of Sundance, removing its ability to project movies earlier this year ahead of the festival. It along with a bunch of other things makes the breakup seem less than amicable. People love speculating, but there are more reasons than listed on the Sundance website.

The first movie I saw was Half Nelson by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the same filmmakers behind Freaky Tales. It was screened as part of the Park City Legacy Series, having originally premiered here in 2004. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie in a genre-inverting story in which a teacher struggling with drug addiction ends up being helped by one of his students.

The film earned Ryan Gosling his first Oscar nomination and also features a great child performance by Shareeka Epps. The Q&A with the filmmakers, along with Anthony Mackie and Shareeka Epps, included a lot of reminiscing about how, after a great premiere, they went from feeling on top of the world to despair over how their distribution negotiations fell apart. It was a solid way to kick off my Sundance experience.

Next, I saw The Weight, starring Ethan Hawke as a man in 1930s Oregon trying to earn his freedom from a prison work camp so he can return to his daughter. It feels like the quintessential dad movie, with moments reminiscent of Train Dreams, but with 1000% more violence, all juxtaposed against the cool, gray PNW setting.

I started my second day by watching See You When I See You, directed by Jay Duplass. It’s adapted from a memoir by comedian Adam Cayton-Holland and chronicles the tragedy and recovery he and his family went through after the untimely death of his sister, with copious use of poop and dick jokes as a means of coping.

This next one was one of the highlights of the festival for me, and apparently for a lot of other people too: The History of Concrete by John Wilson, of How To with John Wilson fame. Is this movie really about concrete? Yes, of course, but it’s also about so much more, like the financial and creative struggles of making art. There are a series of threads that John follows throughout the film that ultimately weave together in unbelievable ways, along with the most unhinged list of cameos imaginable. I can’t wait for this to hit theaters so I can watch it again and catch details I missed.

When I read the tagline for Run Amok: “a girl decides to make a musical about the worst day in their high school’s history” I instantly knew what we were in for. It tackles tough, timely subject matter, and I felt it mostly landed, weaving humor and heavy emotional beats together in this satirical high school movie. Some of the goofier moments include the school being occupied by gun-wielding parents, the “hero” teacher overthrowing the principal, and a modern dance piece set to “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” I think it dragged a bit, especially with all the rehearsal scenes, but I enjoyed nonetheless.

Undertone was a super impressive movie to me. Like many indie films, it takes place largely in a single location with only two on-screen characters, but it executes its unique concept incredibly well. The premise is admittedly kinda goofy: our protagonist, Evy, is caring for her dying mother and records a podcast at night while dealing with insomnia. She and her paranormal-podcast cohost receive an email containing ten spooky audio files and decide to live-react to them on the pod for #content. As the episodes go on, her mental state deteriorates and increasingly unsettling things begin to happen.

We saw this as a midnight screening and were worried it might be hard to stay awake, but the opposite couldn’t have been more true. The sound design is absolutely wild, creating the sensation that noises are coming from all around you and using the podcast premise better than you could ever expect. It made every sound at the Airbnb that night incredibly spooky.

Since I’m a sadist true cinephile, I followed up this midnight screening with a 9 a.m. showing of the Japanese film Burn. It takes place in Kabukicho district in Shinjuku, and follows an abused girl who finds a group of other runaways to live with while trying to figure out how to save her sister. There are a ton of heavy themes in this: abuse, addiction, sexual identity, and being forced to grow up, what a way to start the morning. The visuals were also quite wild, the camera would switch between VHS-quality footage and sequences that looked like point clouds renderings, which were then used for some insane camera movements. The director said he was not directly inspired by the movie Love and Pop but he does really enjoy it.

All About the Money was the second documentary I watched at this festival, created by Irish director Sinéad O’Shea. It gives us a window into the life of Fergie Chambers, an heir to a ultra rich family who decided to use his wealth to support leftist political causes. He exists as a walking contradiction and despite his good intentions, he often leaves a trail of discarded people behind him as he moves on to his next endeavor. In one example, he leaves his commune, farm, and jiu-jitsu gym in Western Massachusetts after catching some heat, to move to Tunisia, convert to Islam, and buy¹ a soccer team.

Josephine was one of the movies I was most excited to watch. It takes place in San Francisco and stars Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, and a young girl discovered at the Clement Street Farmers Market. There wasn’t a screening during the time I was there, but my award screening pre-purchase paid off as this film won both the Jury and Audience awards. It’s an incredibly heavy movie about a young girl witnessing a traumatic event (might as well be a Sundance requirement) in Golden Gate Park and how it haunts her. Channing Tatum’s character, the hot-headed jock father, is named Damien and every time he was scolded caused me to have a visceral reaction. This is also the first movie to win both the Jury and Audience Awards since CODA, which went on to win Best Picture in 2022.

I Want Your Sex is the latest film from director Gregg Araki (another Sundance legend) and was a perfect way to end the festival, at the last-ever midnight screening in Park City. The movie is absolutely wild, and watching it with a super engaged crowd only amplified the experience. After a weekend of serious, heavy films, this was a fantastic palate cleanser to close out the festival.

Other Stuff and Final Thoughts

Lastly, here’s a handful of movies I didn’t get to see: The Invite by Olivia Wilde looked incredible and apparently sparked a bidding war that A24 ended up winning. I thought about waking up early on the day we were leaving to try and waitlist for it, but I simply didn’t have the willpower. CharliXCX’s The Moment would have been fun to catch, but since it’s coming out next week anyway and tickets were hotly contested, it was hard to justify. The Gallerist also would have been fun to see and completes the CharliXCX Sundance hat trick but hopefully we’ll get to see it soon.

The weather was unusually warm, which made walking around a pleasure, much to the chagrin of all my skier friends and a maybe symbolic middle finger to PC Mountain owners Vail Resorts. After one of my Friday screenings, I went to explore Main Street, and to my surprise, I ran into local high schoolers participating in the Ice Out protests. Seeing people so engaged, even in this small slice of America, gives me hope. See you in Boulder next year!

1. Later in the Doc he says he didn’t actually own any of the team but gave them a “single digit million” dollar donation to get the team on the up and up ↩︎