At Sundance, Pandemic Dramas Unfold On Screen And Off

LOS ANGELES – A study released this week by The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law using data collected by an Axios-Ipsos poll in Fall 2020, shows that LGBTQ+ people are more adversely impacted in all areas of life by the coronavirus pandemic than their white LGBTQ+ and white non-LGBTQ+ people.

A sun-flared and bong-addled tumble into a teenage Texan summer rife with bombshells and boyfriend problems, “Cusp,” from debut directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt is one of those fractal-style documentaries, in which any given sliver contains all the colors and contours of the whole.

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs square off at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7, there'll be no shortage of stars on the field thanks to A-list QBs Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes and an entertainment lineup that includes halftime performer The Weeknd, national anthem duet team Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church, poet Amanda Gorman and Miley Cyrus, who's headlining the NFL TikTok Tailgate event.

You may be looking at your television screen later on during the 2021 Super Bowl and wondering…how many people are allowed in Raymond James Stadium right now?

Fran Kranz’s “Mass” is likely one of the most emotionally pulverizing films ever made about America’s gun-violence epidemic – but across its 110-minute runtime, not a single shot is fired.

It’s remarkably rare that anyone makes a hand-drawn animated feature for adults, let alone one as strikingly surreal and seriously minded as Dash Shaw’s “Cryptozoo.” READ MORE: 25 Most Anticipated 2021 Sundance Film Festival Premieres This Sundance premiere – honored with the fest’s Innovator Award in its NEXT section for “pure, bold works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling” – takes place in an alt-history 1960s secretly populated by “cryptids,” including

Bring Your Own Brigade isn't the first cinematic report on the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, in 2018, or even the first one to screen at Sundance (Ron Howard's Rebuilding Paradise played at the festival in 2020). It almost certainly won't be the last film about the devastation wrought by uncontrolled wildfires, particularly in California, by a long shot.

13-year-old Sammy Ko (Miya Cech) is a problem child. Prone to skipping class, smoking cigarettes, and mouthing off to her teachers, she’s the opposite of the meek model student Hollywood typically imagines when writing young Asian-American characters.

Also Read: Sundance 2021: What Has Sold So Far, From 'CODA' to 'Flee' (Photos)Other Sundance films that have nothing to do with viruses have somehow caught the mood of the moment. Lucy Walker’s “Bring Your Own Brigade,” for example, is a documentary about the wildfires that have grown increasingly deadly in California over the past few years.

Literally opening, as the title implies, with “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet,” Argentinian director Ana Katz’s melancholic rumination on the life of Sebastian (Daniel Katz, the filmmaker’s brother), a languishing writer turned migrant worker, is a visually stunning, but oftentimes opaque experiment. Filmed in lush black and white, with animated interludes used to portray the more devastating aspects of Sebastian’s life, Katz’s film unfurls as a series of vignettes.

Abuse leaves scars unseen but permanent in director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s debut “Wild Indian,” a character study wrapped in larger observations on the generational effects of violence and religious guilt. In it, two men marked by a single crime lead distinctively dysfunctional lives.

In the aftermath of unprecedented change, it’s anyone’s guess where the planet will be by the conclusion of the 2020s. As the globe shifts into the second year of the oncoming decade, questions regarding the future of the species have arisen, specifically concerning the ever-increasing relationship between humanity and technology.

With her frayed blonde hair and moody coal-black eye makeup, rock band singer Marian (Alessandra Messa) doesn’t immediately appear to resemble her identical twin sister. Practically a Stepford wife with her demure manner and neat brown bob, Vivian (Ani Messa) lives with her loser husband (Jake Hoffman) in the same house the sisters grew up in.

Hauling two packages home under both arms, Leonor’s (Amalia Ulman) mother María (Ale Ulman) bursts through the door of their small apartment, proclaiming she will never return Amazon purchases for her again. Her daughter isn’t home.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterMovies about the end of the world share a similar DNA: chaos, fire, looting, revelations.

To call a portrait documentary an “affectionate tribute” to its lesser-known subject, is usually redundant. That’s the whole point of adoring acknowledgment docs of this ilk— “shining a brighter spotlight” on [insert criminally undervalued subject here].

NEW YORK -- Peter Nicks had for months been documenting the students of Oakland High School, in California, when the pandemic hit.“It’s in the Bay,” says one student of the virus as he and others mill together in a classroom, excitedly contemplating the cancellation of school.Soon, the principal is heard over the loudspeaker — an announcement that would signal not just the scuttling of prom and graduation ceremonies, but, potentially, Nicks’ film.

For some, Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s “How It Ends” may trigger a bit of PTSD back to the early months of the coronavirus pandemic when stay-at-home orders were in effect. The film was shot in June of 2020.

What does one even make of Ben Wheatley, at this point? That the same director is responsible for films as wildly divergent as “Sightseers,” “A Field in England,” “Free Fire,” “Happy New Year, Colin Burstead,” and last year’s “Rebecca” remake should be impressive – the variations present, in genre and tone, indicated a good old-fashioned journeyman director, and three cheers for that.