It's January again, which ways it's time for yet flipside Sundance Mucosa Festival. Without two years of only a virtual mucosa festival, Sundance returns in 2023 to an in-person event in the snowy town of Park City, Utah. And we're when again! Ready to start watching, diving into the impressive line-up of films this year. This is my 17th year in a row tent this mucosa festival; I'm unchangingly looking forward to returning and watching all the new films premiering at Sundance. Packing in as many as I can catch. Out of the 100 films showing at the 2023 Sundance Mucosa Festival, I've picked 10 films that I'm looking forward to seeing the most. To alimony things well balanced, I've chosen 5 full-length films and 5 documentaries from the line-up. For 2023, the fest is leaning heavily on unknown directors, first-time filmmakers, and gems with breakout potential. As usual with Sundance, you never can really tell what'll good or bad before, but here's my early picks anyway.
For the full line-up of films showing at Sundance 2023 - click here. Follow my reviews on Letterboxd. This will be my 17th year in a row tent Sundance, starting when in 2007 then overly since. I'm still excited to be watching the latest indie films, plane from afar, and I'm hoping there's some good discoveries despite the upturned times we're living in. The fest is just well-nigh to begin, here's my Top 10 most predictable 2023 films.
Alex's Most Predictable ~Sundance 2023~ Full-length Films:
Drift
Directed by Anthony Chen
This is one of my most predictable just considering it sounds so mysterious, as the festival doesn't want to requite yonder too much well-nigh what happens and where the mucosa goes. The original Sundance unravelment says: "Jacqueline escapes her war-torn country to a Greek island. She meets an unmoored tour guide and the two wilt tropical as they each find hope in the other." It's the first English language full-length from an well-known Singaporean filmmaker named Anthony Chen, weightier known for his films Ilo Ilo and Wet Season previously. This one stars Cynthia Erivo as the woman who ends up on the island, withal with a tint including Alia Shawkat and Honor Swinton Byrne. Sundance adds increasingly whoosh saying: "The mucosa sensitively examines both Jacqueline's fraught struggle to resume life in the produce of unimaginable tragedy and her growing yoke with a fellow expat. Cynthia Erivo, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2019's Harriet, vividly portrays Jacqueline's bone-deep grief and all-too-fresh fears, as well as her guarded attempts at human connection."
Rye Lane
Directed by Raine Allen Miller
I can't wait to watch this one!! Rye Lane looks like it might be the modern Before Sunrise/Sunset breakout from the 2023 festival. It's flipside mucosa well-nigh two young people who randomly tumor into each other, and it follows them over the undertow of the day as they talk well-nigh romance and relationships and life and everything else. Searchlight Pictures has once picked this one up, with plans to release it in a few months (only on Hulu in the US - only in theaters in the UK). I'm set to shepherd one of the first screenings at the festival. "For her visually inventive full-length debut, director Raine Allen-Miller launches us into a playful and vibrant world, shaping a romantic spectacle that celebrates meeting the right person at the wrong time. Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia’s fresh notation leap off the page at breakneck speed in the hands of Oparah and Jonsson, channeling all the frustrations of swiping fatigue while holding onto the hope of finding the real deal." It stars David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as the two leads Dom and Yas. Watch the first full trailer here.
Polite Society
Directed by Nida Manzoor
Martial arts awesomeness!! Bring on the unveiling of Polite Society. I've got a feeling this might be one of the big breakouts from the Midnight section at Sundance this year. Polite Society is well-nigh a young woman from London who decides to disrupt her sister's wedding considering she doesn't want her to wilt a trophy wife and requite up on all of her dreams. Which is a unconfined setup for an whoopee comedy. "Aspiring martial versifier Ria Khan believes she must save her older sister, Lena, from her impending marriage. With the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most would-be of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood." Starring Priya Kansara as Ria, and marking the full-length directorial debut of filmmaker Nida Manzoor (also known for creating "We Are Lady Parts"), this has cult hit potential all over it. Maybe it will plane end up stuff a mainstream hit, too! Only time will tell. I've got my ticket for the midnight premiere on the first weekend, I know the whoosh from that first regulars will make it the perfect wits at the festival.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Directed by Raven Jackson
Sundance is a festival where experimentation and innovation in filmmaking are encouraged, and this sounds like one of the films that will stand out for its originality and authenticity. This is flipside mucosa produced by the very talented filmmaker Barry Jenkins (who moreover produced last year's Aftersun). The short unravelment is: "A decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in Mississippi and an ode to the generations of people, places, and ineffable moments that shape us." But the longer intro from the festival adds a few increasingly details: "Raven Jackson’s striking debut is an unpreventable vision, unafraid to immerse us in moments of grief and longing, or within the thickness of things left unsaid. Her camera is patient and loving, capturing the eyeful of Black persons and life. Rural quietness is filled with the transportive sounds of crickets, frogs, and water in its many forms. Jackson's nontraditional narrative borrows from the language of memory." I'm definitely in.
Landscape with Invisible Hand
Directed by Cory Finley
After raving about the Hugh Jackman mucosa Bad Education a few years ago, I'm now a big fan of filmmaker Cory Finley. He should once be a mainstream name, but I think this mucosa will finally put him on the map in a big way. He moreover premiered Thoroughbreds (with Olivia Cooke & Anya Taylor-Joy & Anton Yelchin RIP) at Sundance in 2017, returning with this sci-fi story in 2023. It's well-timed from the book of the same name by M.T. Anderson, well-nigh aliens on Earth. "The Vuvv, a species of hyper-intelligent extraterrestrials, brought wondrous technology to Earth, but only the wealthiest can sire it. The rest of humanity, their livelihoods now obsolete, have to scrape together money in the tourism industry. In the specimen of Adam and his budding love interest Chloe, that ways livestreaming their courtship for the yuck of the coffee-table sized Vuvv, who find human love exotic and interesting. When Adam and Chloe's scheme goes sideways, Adam and his mother have to find their way out of an increasingly nightmarish wayfarer bureaucracy." I must see this.
Other Features I'm Looking Forward To: Sometimes I Think Well-nigh Dying with Daisy Ridley, Sophie Barthes' sci-fi The Pod Generation, Susanna Fogel's Cat Person (based on that one article), Ira Sachs' new mucosa Passages, Roger Ross Williams' Cassandro, Elijah Bynum's Magazine Dreams with Jonathan Majors.
Alex's Most Predictable ~Sundance 2023~ Documentaries:
Deep Rising
Directed by Matthieu Rytz
Not to be tumbled with the trip ship monster horror movie from 1998 moreover titled Deep Rising, this is a whole other mucosa - though it's moreover well-nigh the ocean. I'm a sucker for any films well-nigh our planet and how we should be taking largest superintendency of it, so I'm once sold on this one. Very curious to learn well-nigh what's in the deep. It sounds like it might be profoundly important in discussing plane increasingly exploitation and destruction. The festival introduces this as: "Narrated by Jason Momoa, Deep Rising illuminates the vital relationship between the deep ocean & sustaining life on Earth. The documentary moreover follows mining startup The Metals Company, as it pursues funding, public favor, and permission from the International Seabed Authority to mine wide swaths of the Pacific Ocean floor." I definitely won't be missing this documentary at the festival.
Fantastic Machine
Directed by Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Yet flipside mucosa well-nigh how social media is ruining society. One of the weightier docs from Sundance 2022 that no one watched without the fest was All Light Everywhere, examining of the origins of the camera and how it connects to police soul cams. This one sounds like it follows up on that doc with flipside fascinating visual study. "A meticulous pathological of image-making and a mapping of its movement through society, directors Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck use a mind-boggling variety of tabulated footage to collage this sociological study by tracking the transmogrification of photographic philosophy and technology over human history." The festival won't say it outright, but it sounds like it's uneaten hair-trigger of our society today. Their shorter unravelment says "the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity's unique obsession with the camera's image and the social consequences that lay ahead." I'm definitely in.
Kim's Video
Directed by David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
Any of you remember Kim's Video? The famous video store in New York City? This documentary is well-nigh Kim's Video, but it seems to be flipside one of these "stranger than fiction" stories well-nigh what happened to Kim's and all of the 50,000 movies they used to have. So where did they go? Did this disappear? Are they locked up somewhere? Find out in this documentary film. "In a bid to revitalize tourism, the small Italian village of Salemi, Sicily became home to the archive. But without the initial publicity faded, so too did any sign of the collection. Enter filmmaker David Redmon, who credits Kim's Video for his mucosa education. With the ghosts of talkie past leading his way, Redmon embarks on a seemingly quixotic quest to track lanugo what happened to the legendary hodgepodge and to self-ruling it from purgatory." I'm so curious what he finds over there and Italy and if he can somehow get his hands on all these lost movies. Very curious to see what this shows.
The Eternal Memory
Directed by Maite Alberdi
I am big fan of Chilean director Maite Alberdi's previous film, The Mole Agent, which ended up with an Oscar nomination in 2021. Alberdi is when at Sundance then with flipside lovely documentary well-nigh elderly people, though this one sounds a bit increasingly heartbreaking and sad. "Augusto and Paulina have been together for 25 years. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Both fear the day he no longer recognizes her." It's yet flipside mucosa well-nigh Alzheimer's disease and how harsh it is, expressly with this story well-nigh a couple. "Day by day, the couple squatter this rencontre head-on, adapting to the disruptions brought on by the taxing disease while relying on the tender unhealthfulness and sense of humor shared between them that remains intact." I'm nervous this doc will be really emotional to watch, but I can't miss it at the fest anyway.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
Everyone knows & loves Michael J. Fox! Of undertow they finally made a documentary well-nigh him, and well-nigh his struggles with Parkinson's disease. It's made by the well-known director of the doc films An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman before. "Fox's improbable story sounds like the stuff of Hollywood, so what largest way to tell it than through scenes from his own work, supplemented with stylish recreations? Owning his own narrative, the two-face playfully recounts his journey with intimacy, candor, and humor. In the hands of Davis Guggenheim, Still reveals what happens when an eternal optimist confronts an incurable disease." This will moreover be sad and tough to watch at times, but I moreover have a feeling it's going to lean increasingly into stuff triumphant and uplifting, as Fox seems like the kind of guy who wants us to be empowered by his story not brought lanugo by it. Looking forward to stuff at the world premiere of this doc on the weekend.
More Docs I'll Be Watching: Tracy Droz Tragos' Plan C, Laura McGann's The Deepest Breath, Rebecca Landsberry-Baker & Joe Peeler's journalism mucosa Bad Press, Milisuthando Bongela's poetic Milisuthando.
For all of Alex's Sundance 2023 reviews and updates: Follow @firstshowing
For increasingly Sundance 2023 previews virtually the web, highlighting early picks and potential breakouts, moreover see: The Mucosa Stage's 20 Most-Anticipated Premieres, Indiewire's 27 Must-See Films at This Year's Festival, Rolling Stone's 20 Movies We Can't Wait to See at Sundance 2023, and Hidden Remote's 2023 Sundance most predictable movies. You never know what might be a big hit, and it's vital to have a pulse on the early whoosh – plane surpassing the fest starts. There's plenty of intriguing films found in the selection this year, tons of discoveries from first time filmmakers and up-and-coming talent, so let's jump right in and start watching.
You can follow our Sundance 2023 coverage and reviews right here and on Alex's Letterboxd. The festival begins on January 19th and runs until January 29th, with films premiering online locally. Glad to be back.
