Our Top Must See Films at Sundance Film Festival 2021
Sundance Film Festival 2021 kicks off on Jan. 28th! The robust, more streamlined, line up has been dwindled from 128 films to a little over 70 this year. Films include familiar names and faces such as: Edgar Wright, Lucy Walker, Robin Wright, Betsy West and Julie Cohen, Siân Heder, Sion Sono, Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, and many more. The exciting thing is there are even more first-timers this year! For example, Questlove makes his filmmaking debut this year. Although things will be VERY different than previous years, there is a ton to be excited about this Sundance Film Festival than ever before.
Here are our top must-see films this year!
Coda:
Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member of a deaf family. At 17, she works mornings before school to help her parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant) keep their Gloucester fishing business afloat. But in joining her high school’s choir club, Ruby finds herself drawn to both her duet partner (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) and her latent passion for singing. Her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) hears something special and encourages Ruby to consider music school and a future beyond fishing, leaving her torn between obligation to family and pursuit of her dream.
Siân Heder’s heartwarming, exuberant follow-up to Tallulah (2016 Sundance Film Festival) brings us inside the idiosyncratic rhythms and emotions of a deaf family—something we’ve rarely seen on screen. In developing CODA, which stands for Child of Deaf Adults, Heder was determined to tell the story authentically with deaf actors. CODA easily makes it on our must-see list this year!
Censor is Prano Bailey-Bond’s debut feature for Sundance! It’s a faithful, creative ode to 1980s aesthetics and a twisted, bloody love letter to the video nasties of the era. The film re-creates a moment in which society was on the brink of mass hysteria over the dangers of viewers being seduced by violent images—and then she cleverly immerses us in the haunted Enid’s shifting reality. Actress Niamh Algar stuns as her brittle character grows increasingly possessed by her quest. “In making Censor, I wanted to create a fun ride that also interrogates our relationship with horror,” Prano states. The film contains strobe effects, extreme violence and gore which is perfect for its premier slo.
Nature is both a driving force and a spiritual indicator in I Was a Simple Man, the second feature from writer-director Christopher Makoto Yogi. When Masao is healthy, his plants thrive; when a terminal sickness encroaches, the plants wither and die. The island’s ambient noises—the waves, the wind, the birds—thread through the film’s time-shifting chapters, from the pre-World War II sugar plantations of Oahu to Hawai'i statehood to the present gentrification of Honolulu. As time goes on, Masao is visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife, Grace (Constance Wu), who helps shepherd him into the beyond. Part dream, part family history, I Was a Simple Man feels both achingly intimate and incredibly expansive.
While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) discovers an unfinished bunker—a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and older sister (Taissa Farmiga) and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants. In his directorial debut, visual artist Pascual Sisto mines this alarming pulp premise for an enigmatic and unsettling meditation on adolescent angst in this psychological thriller.
On the Count of Three:
Val (Jerrod Carmichael) has reached a place where he feels the only way out is to end things. But he considers himself a bit of a failure—his effectiveness lacking—so he figures he could use some help. As luck would have it, Val’s best friend, Kevin (Christopher Abbott), is recovering from a failed suicide attempt, so he seems like the perfect partner for executing this double suicide plan. But before they go, they have some unfinished business to attend to.
Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)
In 1969, during the same summer as Woodstock, a different music festival took place 100 miles away. More than 300,000 people attended the summer concert series known as the Harlem Cultural Festival. It was filmed, but after that summer, the footage sat in a basement for 50 years. It has never been seen. Until now. Now more than ever it’s important to tell the story of all of these talented artist. “I couldn’t think of a better way to make a directorial debut than telling the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969,” Questlove states.
Knocking
When Molly hears knocking coming from the ceiling in her new apartment, she naturally searches for the source. The upstairs neighbors don’t know what she’s talking about and dismiss her with cool indifference. Is this all in her mind? After all, she’s still processing a traumatic event that left her mentally unwell, and the unprecedented heat wave isn’t helping her think clearly. As the knocking intensifies and gives way to a woman’s cries, Molly becomes consumed with finding out the truth. Could it be Morse code? Is someone trapped? And more importantly, why doesn’t anyone care? Directed by Frida Kempff and produced by Erik Andersson. Knocking is a sharp indictment of the gaslight culture and social stigma that work against those experiencing mental illness. It’s the brilliant film adapted from the screenplay by Emma Broström that touches on pressing topics.
Eight for Silver:
Writer-director Sean Ellis follows up his audience award–winning feature Metro Manila (World Cinema Audience Award, 2013 Sundance Film Festival) with this gruesome gothic spin on werewolf lore. Eight for Silver is a beautifully crafted period piece and a supremely effective horror tale. In the late nineteenth century, brutal land baron Seamus Laurent (Alistair Petrie) slaughters a Roma clan, unleashing a curse on his family and village. In the days that follow, the townspeople are plagued by nightmares, Seamus’s son Edward (Max Mackintosh) goes missing, and a boy is found murdered. The locals suspect a wild animal, but visiting pathologist John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) warns of a more sinister presence lurking in the woods. It’s a film full of gloom and dread and the monsters that lurk inside of men.
On the day an asteroid is scheduled to obliterate Earth, freewheeling Liza (Zoe Lister-Jones) scores an invite to one last wild gathering before it all goes down. Making it to the party won’t be easy, though, after her car is unceremoniously stolen, and the clock is ticking on her plan to tie up loose ends with friends and family. With a little help from her whimsical younger self (Cailee Spaeny), Liza embarks on a journey by foot across Los Angeles as she seeks to make peace with her regrets—and find the right company for those last few hours.
Judas and the Black Messiah:
Judas and the Black Messiah is produced by Ryan Coogler and directed and co-written by Shaka King, will debut at Sundance Film Festival on Monday, Feb. 1 at 6:00pm Mountain Time on the digital platform. The film is an American drama that is based on the story of the life of Fred Hampton, chairman of The Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. The film also highlights Fred Hampton and his importance ’s cathartic words “I am a revolutionary” became a rallying call in 1969. As chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, Hampton demanded all power to the people and inspired a growing movement of solidarity, prompting the FBI to consider him a threat and to plant informant William O’Neal to infiltrate the party. Judas and the Black Messiah not only recounts Hampton’s legacy and the FBI’s conspiring but also gives equal footing to the man who became infamous for his betrayal—highlighting the systems of inequality and oppression that fed both of their roles.