‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ Electrifies Sundance With Packed & Powerful Premiere

Diego Ramos Bechara editor Apple announced plans to provide grants to the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, as a part of the company’s Empowering Creatives program. The grants aim to “continue Apple’s work to support and partner with Indigenous communities” by “supporting organizations that help people in underinvested communities unlock their creative potential.” Per Apple, both grant recipients are “dedicated” to amplifying the voices and experiences of Native and Indigenous peoples.

After seeing its Martin Scorsese pic Killers of the Flower Moon, depicting the “Reign of Terror” in Osage territory, score 10 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Apple has announced new grants to the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, in support of Indigenous storytelling and the preservation of Native American history.

IFC Films and Sapan Studio announced today that they have acquired the North American rights to Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s Ghostlight out of the Sundance premiere section.

EXCLUSIVE: The Ford Foundation is coming through for documentary filmmakers in a big way.  

Pixies and Modest Mouse have announced their joint 2024 US tour with Cat Power which is set to kick off later this year.The co-headlining tour will see Power provide opening support and is set to kick off on Friday, May 31 at the Firefly Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina. From there, the are set to make stops in major cities such as Nashville, Atlanta, Pittsburg, Toronto, Philadelphia, Queens, Mansfield, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Austin, Irving and more.The tour will wrap up on Sunday, June 30 at Fiddler’s Green in Denver, Colorado.

Love Me,” from filmmaker duo Sam and Andy Zuchero, received the juried feature film prize from Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-in-Film initiative at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The prize is awarded to a film that focuses on science or technology as a theme or depicts a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.

Elizabeth Taylor “Big Little Lies” Season 3 is coming along nicely. “We’re at work on it,” Nicole Kidman told Variety Sunday night at the New York premiere of her new series “Expats.” Kidman says she and Reese Witherspoon are “texting every day” about the third season. “And there’s a timeline and we’re doing it.” She laughed when asked for more details.

Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Summerfest, Pitchfork Music, etc. They all owe an enormous debt to Lollapalooza, the groundbreaking music festival that helped change the touring and music industry just as alternative music peaked in the early 90s.

Exhibiting Forgiveness, directed and written by Titus Kaphar, is a thought-provoking film starring Andre Holland, John Earl Jelks, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Ian Foreman. Set against a backdrop of familial struggle and personal demons, Kaphar’s film navigates the complexities of forgiveness, accountability, and the resilience of the human spirit. Tarrell Rodin (Holland), a loving father and husband who resides in the suburbs with his wife Aisha (Day), a singer-songwriter, and their son Jermaine. Renowned in the American art scene for his haunting, personal work, Tarrell dedicates his days to his art studio, using painting to turn his nightmares into art. His devotion to art, coupled with the support of his family and his diligent work ethic, has helped him keep his ugly past at a distance. He aims to take care of his mother Joyce (Ellis-Taylor) and wants to get her out of the neighborhood she lives in, but she’s apprehensive as she wants to stay close to her church. Its only a temporary move nit deep down he hopes Joyce in hopes she can provide support as he struggles with old memories. 

Sundance has a long history of screening films that tackle issues of race in the U.S. from every possible angle. Some are angry (Birth of a Nation, 2016), some satirical (Dear White People, 2014), and some quite gonzo (Sorry to Bother You, 2018).

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Justice Smith‘s career has taken him to the forefront of major Hollywood tentpoles such as “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu,” but it has never taken him to the Sundance Film Festival until now. The 28-year-old actor was one of five honorees at the Variety & Golden Globes Breakthrough Artists Party presented by Adobe, and earning a breakthrough artist award was “a really warm welcome” to the annual Park City event.

Early in Yance Ford’s visual essay “Power,” he tells the audience that the film to come either requires “curiosity” or  “at least suspicion” from the viewer. It’s the type of bold claim that might pack a punch as a rhetorical hook, especially for a documentary that dives into the cultural, social, economic, and political history of policing in the United States.

“The Greatest Night In Pop” is so entertaining and eminently watchable, and it’s as simple as that. Directed by Bao Nguyen, the acclaimed filmmaker of the Bruce Lee doc “Be Water,” the already-engaging subject matter doesn’t hurt: nearly 50 of the top American music artists in the world all in one room, recording a soon-to-be global hit single.

Marta Balaga Thea Hvistendahl’s “Handling the Undead,” fresh off its Sundance premiere, has already scared multiple buyers into submission, Variety has found out exclusively. Starring “The Worst Person in the World’s” Renate Reinsve and sold by TrustNordisk, it has been picked up by Hungary (Vertigo Media), Benelux (September Film), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), France (KinoVista), Spain (Avalon Distribution), Korea (Pancinema), Japan (Tohokushinsha Film Corp.), Taiwan (Swallow Wings Films) and ANZ (Signature Entertainment). Neon Rated acquired North American and U.K.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Writer-director Sean Wang is tough on himself in “Dìdi,” a fresh and funny summer-before-freshman-year flashback that provides an Asian American angle on that Sundanciest of indie-film genres: the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie. In what feels like a cross between Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap” and Jonah Hill’s “mid90s” — courtesy of the young director’s teenage desire to make skate videos — Wang serves up some of his most wince-inducing adolescent memories, from an aborted first kiss to the realization that he’d been trying to downplay his Taiwanese heritage.

The war in Gaza is coming to Park City.

Within minutes following the opening fade-in of “Gaucho Gaucho,” a trio of individuals can be seen dashing across a barren landscape, each sitting astride their own majestic-looking horse bathed in a sea of black and white with a South American backdrop beautifully framing the moment. It’s an appropriate setup to this documentary about gauchos, the colloquialism used to describe Argentinian cowboys and cowgirls, as the 84-minute runtime serves as little more than an exercise in striking photography mixed with a series of vignettes that’s as slice of life as one’s likely to find.

EXCLUSIVE: Ruaridh Mollica says he had a year to prepare for his “role of a lifetime — so far” in Finnish filmmaker Mikko Makela’s powerful new film Sebastian, which premieres at Sundance on Sunday.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Carla Gutierrez is known in the documentary community for her work as a film editor. She was behind Oscar nominated docs “RBG” and “La Corona” as well as Emmy winner “Julia.” But in 2022, after two decades of editing, Gutierrez decided to direct “Frida,” a docu about iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, which has its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival this week. “A few months before we started working on ‘Frida,’ I would say, ‘I’m really content with editing.’ I had no thoughts of directing, but her story really pulled me in and I realized I have to direct this (film).

Theda Hammel’s latest dramedy at Neon Stressed Positions stars Hammel, John Early, Qaher Harhash, Amy Zimmer, Faheem Ali, and Rebecca F. Wright follows Bahlul, a queer Moroccan-American model that everyone wants to meet. While moments emerge showing the glimmer of an insightful character study, the film quickly dissolves into an endurance test drowned out by superficial noise. One must tip the cap to Hammel’s sheer feat of micro-budget production, but his organic style choices bewilder more than enlighten.The film follows Bahlul (Harhash), a 20-year old  Moroccan, American model, spending his time in recovery from a broken leg with his uncle Terry in Brooklyn, Ny. Terry is not Moroccan, but American and white and are family by marriage. The injured Bahlul meets a cast of eccentric characters, including Terry’s best friend Karla (Hammel), Carla‘s girlfriend, Vanessa (Zimmer), Terry’s husband Leo (Roberts), Ronald (Ali), the local GrubHub delivery guy, and Coco (Wright), the woman living in the apartment above them.