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

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.

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.

The idea of youth escaping into a large section of woods so as to start life anew is a plot device not at all unexplored prior, seen in films as recently as 2013’s “The Kings of Summer,” while literature will always have “My Side of the Mountain. “In “Penelope, “the concept gets the episodic treatment, but if the premiere is any indicator, this is one project with the potential to captivate in its own unique way.

Twenty years ago, Ondi Timoner’s rock doc “Dig!” the wildly entertaining, sensationalistic portrait of the dysfunctional indie rock bands the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols and their strange love/hate relationship and rivalry, was a smash hit, at least critically, winning the Sundance Prize Grandy Jury Prize for Best Documentary and squarely landing the filmmaker on the map.

“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.

There’s something magical that happens to most people around the age of 13. For many, that’s when you might have your first real romantic love.

Media representation of disabled people is challenging to get right — too saccharine, and you’re veering towards inspiration porn, too maudlin, and you’re implying that a disabled life might not be a life worth living. “Ibelin,” the newest documentary from “The Painter and the Thief” filmmaker Benjamin Ree, strikes a poignant balance, acknowledging the ways that physical disability can limit a life while showing how one complex man expanded his world nonetheless.

“Reinas,” the latest from director Klaudia Reynicke, is a quiet but vivid tale of summer days in Lima, Peru. The script, which Reynicke co-wrote with Diego Vega, depicts a family drama against a backdrop of political chaos.

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.

Filmmakers have parsed the zombie genre from seemingly every angle possible. George A.

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 phrase in the clutch represents an ability to pull off something crucial during an important moment, widely used in the world of sports. These words can be applied to any Hail Mary football pass, any home run while the bases are loaded, or a three-point buzzer beater; it’s the latter with which athletes like Sue Bird are acutely familiar and can be seen several times over the course of “Sue Bird: In The Clutch, “ an aptly named documentary telling the story of one of the finest players the WNBA has ever seen.

Since helming the Academy Award-nominated “Winter’s Bone” in 2010, Debra Granik has enjoyed shifting between a further dabble into feature-length filmmaking (“Leave No Trace”) in addition to documentary work (“Stray Dog”), which, when coupled with her eclectic decades-strong filmography clearly showcases an overabundance of ability and flair for skillfully adapting to any subject that comes her way. Another comfortable entry on her resume exists in “Conbody VS Everybody, “a six-part docu-series with a concept unlike anything she’s tackled prior while continuing to demonstrate her knack for creating something compelling while also supremely relevant to this day and age.

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.

PARK CITY – Movies that stick with you long after you watch them are nothing new. There are literally thousands of examples in the history of cinema.

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.

It starts innocuously enough. “Krazy House,” the English-language debut of Dutch filmmakers Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil, launches with a ‘90s family sitcom parody that ribs their cheese and cringe.

China began loosening its one-child policy in 2015 until finally, in 2021, it abolished all restrictions on the number of children a family could have. Young Chinese filmmakers are beginning to grapple with the fallout of those prior decades in new fiction films that demonstrate how the Chinese family unit has been irreversibly transformed.

As one examines the abundance of cultures worldwide, to see the marginal way women continue to be treated on a global scale remains infuriating to take in during the era of #MeToo and the fact that seemingly little progress has been made even as our society makes its way into 2024. Though gains can undeniably be acknowledged on the political front and numerous other fields, it’s still apparent that an ocean exists in the way of real change, with “Black Box Diaries” a stunning example of the heavily outdated customs in which parts of our minuscule planet find themselves stuck and the women who suffer as a direct result.

The premise of the documentary “Will & Harper” is so simple that it almost seems presentational, self-serving, or stunt-y. The idea is, after 30 years of friendship, comedian Will Ferrell learns, through a personal email, that an old friend and former “Saturday Night Live” writer, then Adam Steele (yes, the dead name is used at first), is coming out as a trans woman.

As the “peak TV” wave begins to crest, artists are again realizing that not every book needs adaptation as a miniseries. There’s value in the concision and prioritization forced by the feature format.

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.

The first of many misdirects of perspective occurs in the opening shot of “In a Violent Nature.” The film opens with off-screen voices in discussion as the camera fixes its glance on what appears like a slipshod frame of a tree branch in the forest. It’s an image that feels haphazardly put together, and combined with the disembodied dialogue, filmmaker Chris Nash primes the audience to perceive the scene as something akin to a DIY YouTube video.

Every so often, a film comes along that, as if out of nowhere, leaves an unexpected impression and a need to find a moment to take in all that was witnessed fully; it’s a phenomenon that can come from any genre, any type of project, any filmmaker or subject, from battles in a galaxy far, far away to the intricate life story of a media tycoon. Sometimes, the smallest forms of art end up being the most effective, with “Sugarcane” a perfect example of how to draw in an audience to the film’s powerful message with moments as shocking as any entry into the world of horror.

It’s safe to assume that, were one to simply look at the film’s runtime or consider the basic concept surrounding the documentary “Daughters,“ there’s presumably much more to this than a simple film about a Father-Daughter dance organized for one particular group of incarcerated men and their children, separated by prison walls and an ocean of distance both physically as much as emotionally. Such dance events are commonplace; normally held annually as a way for fathers to bond with their young girls within a setting not unlike a homecoming dance or prom, most could be seen as little more than an excuse for a large group of children to burn off energy as they dash around a gymnasium to any number of DJ-provided pop hits, but there are equal parts undeniable connections made throughout the course of the evening as well as a memory both will, in all likelihood, forever cherish.

Every human being, to some degree, takes for granted their loved ones, those who are present in their lives. But appreciating the fragility of who you have, and for the brief time you may have them, is difficult to consider when you’re a teenager trying to live your life and discover your place in the world.

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.

It’s notoriously difficult to make films about writers. Writing — literally sitting down at a keyboard and banging out words — is about as fun to watch as paint drying.