‘Daughters’ Review: Imprisoned Fathers Attempt To Connect With Their Children In This Emotion-Soaked Documentary [Sundance]

Investigative documentaries are some of the most interesting films you can watch. There’s no need to create artificial drama, as the subjects are real, and you can’t help but get swept up in the investigation.

In the ‘80s, everyone was scared of Satanists. You know, the whole Satanic Panic era.

There’s a special type of frustration that comes with watching a film like Bruno Mourral’s “Kidnapping Inc.” It’s a frustration borne from a good place—you want the film to succeed—but around every corner, “Kidnapping Inc.” just can’t help but trip over itself. This is a film that showcases two really solid lead performances, highlights horrific injustice found in a country many people aren’t familiar with, and is shot in a way that makes its modest budget feel much bigger.

Perhaps the best compliment that you can give a narrative feature is to say that it feels like a documentary. Not to say the shot composition is uninspired and the subject dry, but it’s a way to spotlight just how you forget this is actually an actor reading written words, but instead, believe everything happening in front of you is real and true.

Unlike other film festivals around the globe, Sundance has been ahead of the curve when it comes to telling LGBTQIA+ stories whether in narrative or documentary form. That was once again evident in 2024 with the festival selecting films such as “Layla,” “Sebastian,” “My Old Ass,” “Stress Positions” and “Ponyboi.” One NEXT slate selection that attempted to cross the lines of both documentary and drama is Jules Rosskam’s “Desire Lines.” Sadly, like many world premieres in its genre this year, it comes up disappointingly short.

As the latest feature from writers/directors Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero (“Identifying Features”) draws to a close, it’s hard to ignore the starkness, pacing, and tone overall; this is hardly the sort of film one puts on as any sort of a palate cleanser. While superbly well-made, beautifully shot, and comprised of a cast firing on all cylinders in terms of acting ability, to make it through “Sujo” is akin to a slight exercise in endurance, though not without a noticeable crescendo as the film chugs along.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” joins “Free Solo” in a film subgenre that can only be described as “F*ck That.” It’s an ultra-specific genre of documentary that showcases feats that are so incredibly dangerous that you not only shake your head in disbelief but actually get your heart beating harder as you hold your breath, imagining that if you don’t make a noise, then maybe these people won’t die right before your eyes.

By now, it should be evident that each passing year brings with it advancements in technology, landing anywhere on an imaginary graph containing the likes of the latest smartphone to a car that can brew a mean cup of coffee. One area that’s been hovering over the whole of humanity for far longer than a need for a house that dictates a grocery list is that of the afterlife; pondering what happens after each and every one of us shuffle off this mortal coil remains, quite possibly, an everlastingly unanswerable question, but for those left behind in the wake of a loved one’s passing, a more pressing matter would be the manner in which one deals with said loss, and how best to move on.

Despite the increased awareness of gender identities, there is one classification that has been around for over 100 years or 30 years (it’s debatable) that rarely enjoys the spotlight, intersex. An intersex person can be a broad definition for someone who is born without a number of different sexual characteristics.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is almost at an end, but there are still films to screen in the online portion of the festival and, almost as importantly, awards to hand out to happy independent filmmakers. The big winners at this year’s awards ceremony were Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers” which won the Grand Jury Prize U.S.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is almost at an end, but there are still films to screen in the online portion of the festival and, almost as importantly, awards to hand out to happy independent filmmakers. The big winners at this year’s awards ceremony were Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers” which won the Grand Jury Prize U.S.

It might come as a surprise to most that the skirmish between Russia and Ukraine has been active for nearly a decade. However, international headlines would raise awareness to new heights upon Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February of 2022.

Filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, making her feature directorial drama, starts her non-fiction film “The Mother Of All Lies” as a modest family chronicle—an elevated home video of sorts. It is soon clear, though, that she has much more on her mind because the actual subject of her inquiry is the collective amnesia around a seminal event that changed Morocco forever, the 1981 Casablanca bread riots.

Some movies are Irish. “Kneecap” is Ireland.

A formally rigorous and free-associative dive into a decade’s worth of political fighting in the Congo, from roughly 1955 to 1965, Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is a fascinating and sprawling historical overview. Eschewing the usual mix of contextual talking heads, the Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist instead adopts its narrative approach from the jazz that flows freely throughout the film and helps frame the political struggles of the Congo.

Jesse Moss’ chilling and engrossing documentary “War Game” begins ominously, moves with urgency, and never lets up. The film begins with two suspicious men surveilling the capitol building in Washington D.C.

An exploration of the generational trauma surrounding the “stolen generations” of Aboriginal children by the Australian government, Jon Bell’s feature debut “The Moogai” fits all the criteria of what we would, perhaps pejoratively, describe as “elevated horror.” A fraught term, and one that would need more than the length of this review to dive into, it nevertheless seems apt for a film that so blatantly makes its subtext into text.

The first line of “Winner” says it all: “My name is Reality Winner.” This uninspired introduction to the character, an NSA employee who leaked classified documents surrounding Russian election interference to the media, sets the tone for what’s to follow. Susanna Fogel’s film is not actively bad, just aggressively bland.

A raw examination of labor organization at its most powerful, pure, and fragile, “Union” is a look at union drama uncut and without any guardrails. Verité to a fault, directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story present the documentary with a detached remove that isn’t matched by the framing of the central conflict, and yet morsels of true inspiration still manage to tumble forth.

Men can be overbearing. Some of us know this firsthand because, with a bit of self-awareness, we can recognize we have, at least at some point, been the pompous bloviating jackass while more introverted people, sometimes women, silently sit and endure our blowhard monologues.