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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 22 January 2020
At Sundance, an annual

rebirth for American movies

By JAKE COYLE it, the world we’re living in participants), but the distri-
NEW YORK (AP) — The Sun- right now. It’s the urgency bution landscape awaiting
dance Film Festival, com- of thinking outside of old those filmmakers has often
ing at the start of a new normalities.” been fraught.
movie calendar, is an an- Sundance, which kicks off Some in the industry are
nual rite of renewal. New Thursday and runs through predicting less ravenous
movies. New filmmakers. Feb. 2, will bring plenty of buying at Sundance this
New voices. And that feels established names. Taylor year after several of the
In this June 19, 2019 file photo, a postal worker returns to their especially welcome this Swift will be there for the high-priced acquisitions
truck parked on a flooded street in Miami caused by high tides. year. opening day premiere of fizzled at the box office, in-
Associated Press Sundance always rolls Lana Wilson’s documentary cluding the Amazon titles
around just as the worst on her, “Miss Americana.” “Late Night” and “The Re-
movies are being dumped The Hulu documentary se- port.” But streaming ser-
in theaters ( see: “Dolittle” ries “Hillary” will bring Hillary vices have undoubtedly
) and Hollywood’s long- Clinton to Park City. Julia helped sales at Sundance,
running awards season is Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell adding an influx of buy-
petering out. This year, the will be attendance for the ers looking to beef up their
run-up to the Oscars has premiere of the “Force Ma- digital libraries.
been dispiritingly homoge- jeure” remake “Downhill.” Disney Plus has a movie in
neous, coalescing around And Lin Manuel-Miranda this year’s children’s slate
a field of nominees lack- will be there with several (Tom McCarthy’s “Timmy
ing in diversity both behind films, including “Siempre, Failure: Mistakes Were
and in front of the camera. Luis,” about his father Luis Made”). Apple had one
With some notable excep- Miranda, and “We Are of the festival’s most antici-
tions, it feels like the same Freestyle Love Supreme,” pated movies’ in “On the
old. about his pre-“Hamilton” Record,” about women
Sundance, though, is a dif- improvising hip-hop group. who have accused music
ferent story. But many go to Sundance mogul Russell Simmons of
This year’s festival, in Park looking for discoveries sexual abuse, but backed
City, Utah, is not only its of filmmakers like Radha out of the film after execu-
most inclusive edition yet Blank, a New York play- tive producer Oprah Win-
— 44% of its 118 feature- wright who stars in her frey departed it. Warner-
length films were directed black-and-white directo- Media, which is preparing
or co-directed by women, rial debut, “The 40-Year- the launch of HBO Max,
34% were directed or co-di- Old Version.” She plays a will for the first time have a
rected by a person of color slightly fictionalized ver- presence at the festival.
— but features a dynamic sion of herself as a middle- Kim Yutani, director of pro-
slate of proudly unconven- aged woman who, after gramming at Sundance,
tional narrative and docu- the death of her mother, believes streaming services
mentary films. rededicates herself to rap- have been an unquestion-
“Zola,” from director Janic- ping. able positive to the post-
za Bravo and co-writer Jer- “My protagonist, her pas- festival lives of Sundance
emy O. Harris, is based on a sion is speaking truth films.
viral 148-tweet thread from through hip hop. For me, “I remember reading the
2015. “Nine Days,” the fea- my passion is filmmaking. It press coverage of Sun-
ture directing debut of Ed- just took me a little bit lon- dance back in the day,
son Oda, is set in a surreal ger to articulate that for and I would think: How will
pre-life realm where an in- myself,” says Blank. “I know I ever see these films?” says
terviewer (Winston Duke) is that people have labeled Yutani. “You would see a
selecting souls to be born. me a late bloomer but I’ve handful of them in theatri-
The documentary “Boys been writing for years. I cal distribution. The rest of
State,” by Jesse Moss and don’t think I’m the person them were almost impos-
Amanda McBaine, is a sto- who’s late.” sible to see. So, it’s such
ry of American democracy Like many others pre- an exciting time to release
in microcosm, told through miering films this week in our program and know the
an unusual experiment in Park City, Blank has been majority of these films will
which a thousand teenage through the lab programs get seen.”
boys build a government of the Sundance Institute, Netflix already has at least
from the ground up. the nonprofit founded by nine films at Sundance, in-
“We do think of it as the Robert Redford that also cluding “Miss Americana,”
new year of culture where puts on the festival. “I’m another opening-day doc-
people have to sit up and a Sundance baby,” says umentary in “Crip Camp,”
take notice,” says John Blank. “I started in the lab.” about the disability rights
Cooper, the director of Sun- Those workshops have movement, and Dee Rees’
dance. “Audiences have been a breeding ground “Mudbound” follow-up,
changed, too. They’re for American filmmakers “The Last Thing He Want-
more hungry for different. (Paul Thomas Anderson ed,” a Joan Didion adap-
That’s not just from the Os- and Quentin Tarantino are tation starring Anne Hatha-
cars. That’s from, let’s face among their many former way and Ben Affleck.q