The Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the United States, celebrates bold, creative, and distinctive voices. The upcoming 2021's edition will offer an online platform featuring seven days of premieres, events, artist talks, and cutting-edge XR exhibitions. It will also be partnering with independent cinema communities across the U.S. to safely host in-person events. From January 28 through February 3, adventurous audiences and indie film lovers everywhere will come together to be the first to discover exciting new creative visions that people will be talking about all year.
This year the Festival will downsize to 72 feature films (from last year's 128) but still including a 50% of the total of female directors, more than 50% of the total of filmmakers of color and a number of genderqueer artists.
The full line-up includes few interesting Asian titles. Here they are:
“Fire in the Mountains“ (India – Director and Screenwriter: Ajitpal Singh, Producers: Ajay Rai, Alan McAlex)
a searing portrait of the power dynamics at play between tradition and modernity in one family's foundation.
“One for the Road“ (China-Hong Kong-Thailand – Director: Baz Poonpiriya, Screenwriters: Baz Poonpiriya, Nottapon Boonprakob, Puangsoi Aksornsawang, Producer: Wong Kar Wai)
With a perfectly balanced mix of the sorrow, joy, nostalgia, and romance you would expect in a film produced by Wong Kar Wai, “One for the Road” is a cinematic treat, much like the mouth-watering cocktails that are highlighted throughout.
“Writing With Fire“ (India – Directors and Producers: Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh)
In their feature debut, directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh follow this ambitious group of Dalit wonder women-led by their chief reporter, Meera—as the team switches from print to digital in order to stay relevant.
“In The Same Breath“ (Director: Nanfu Wang, Producers: Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn)
Acclaimed filmmaker Nanfu Wang navigates the origin and spread of COVID-19 from Wuhan to the United States through a lens both personal and geopolitical in scale.
“Prisoners of the Ghostland“ (Director: Sion Sono, Screenwriters: Aaron Hendry, Reza Sixo Safai, Producers: Michael Mendelsohn, Laura Rister, Ko Mori, Reza Sixo Safai, Nate Bolotin)
Sion Sono's delirious mash-up of Western, samurai, and postapocalyptic thriller is a sly spoof of the mythical hero's journey.
