Must-See Shorts from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival
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After providing coverage on nearly every feature film premiering at Sundance Film Festival this year, today we turn the spotlight on our favorite shorts. With 50 short films accepted from nearly 10,000 submissions, check out our thoughts on a handful of the premiere below, courtesy of Dan Mecca and Shayna Warner.
BJ’s Mobile Gift Shop (Jason Park)
Heartwarming, clever, and well-paced, filmmaker Jason Park builds a fully-realized, hyper-real Chicago in which BJ (Johnnyboy Tellem) is a hustler on the streets with a traveling bag of problem-solving gifts for his many clients around town. He’s strategic in his timing, catching any and every manner of city-dweller at the moment they need a quick snack, a phone charger, a new shirt-and-tie, or something of the sort. Bookended by a precarious skyscraper interview for a “real’ job, Park captures the spirit of his lead nicely. The entire narrative is lifted by a pitch-perf
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When the Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 28, 2021, in Park City, Utah, there won’t be a long line of people standing outside the Eccles Theater, watching their breath catch in the cold winter air and Main Street surely won’t be packed with revelers and sponsor activations, either.
Instead, on account of the coronavirus pandemic, next year’s Sundance will actually expand amid the contraction of live events. Rather than relying solely on in-person experiences, the festival has plans that extend far beyond the theater: a digital platform where patrons around the world can watch this year’s lineup; drive-in screenings at venues around the country; in-person showings at independent art houses nationwide where indoor events can happen safely and in accordance with public health guidelines; and even a virtual reality space that includes live performances and a lobby where people can digitally congregate.
Here are the 72 feature films in the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which will mostly screen online
The festival will be shorter with limited in-person events, to avoid spreading COVID-19.
(Daniel Power | courtesy of Focus Features / Sundance Institute) Robin Wright directs and stars in the drama Land. It s an official selection of the Premieres section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. | Updated: Jan. 5, 2021, 12:33 a.m.
With everything that will be different about the 2021 Sundance Film Festival a shorter event, with fewer films, most of it happening online the quality of movies on the slate has stayed constant, said the festival’s new director, Tabitha Jackson.