Our 15 Most-Anticipated Sundance 2021 Premieres
January 25, 2021
The 2021 Sundance Film Festival, beginning Thursday, will look quite different. Forging ahead during the pandemic, they’ve to continue offering some of the year’s finest independent discoveries, with a new online platform, drive-ins, screenings at independent arthouses around the country, and more.
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re counting down our most-anticipated films. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.
15.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun)
Sundance 2021 Market: 15 Movies That Could Sell Big in a Year of Virtual Discovery IndieWire 1/25/2021
In 2020, the Sundance Film Festival kicked off with a splashy premiere for Netflix’s new Taylor Swift documentary. When the 2021 edition gets underway on Thursday, there will be none of that. As a virtual affair, this year’s Sundance is a back-to-basics event, one where a plethora of smaller-scale films without distribution will vie both for awards and acquisition.
But don’t let the relative lack of A-list names suggest that sales activity will be sluggish. Amid a dearth of production, streaming arms race, and the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel coming into view, buyers are hungry for new product.
Passing
The indie film showcase s pandemic-era program also has directorial debuts by Jerrod Carmichael, Pascual Sisto and Questlove with his Black Woodstock documentary.
As Sundance director Tabitha Jackson s reign at the indie film festival gets well underway, the marquee indie U.S. film showcase has gone mostly online with a pandemic-era discovery lineup filled with work by women and BIPOC directors and more than half the 2021 program shot by first-time helmers.
For Jackson, the focus on debut feature directors underlines how, despite the COVID-19 crisis pausing film production in Hollywood and upending planning for Sundance s upcoming Jan. 28 to Feb. 3, 2021, edition, the marquee festival isn t playing it safe as it doubles down on revealing new independent voices to the world.
Together
Together starring Ed Helms
are among 72 features selected for 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which runs online and in select US arthouse venues from January 28-February 3.
The line-up, announced on Tuesday (December 15), includes
One For The Road, Thai filmmaker Baz Poonpiriya’s follow-up to
Bad Genius; Edgar Wright’s music documentary
The Sparks Brothers
Land; Ben Wheatley’s virus horror
In The Earth; The Roots drummer Questlove’s documentary
Summer Of Soul; and Kevin Macdonald’s Special Screenings selection
Life In A Day 2020.
A features roster representing 29 countries and 38 first-time feature filmmakers includes three films from Cannes Label 2020:
Pascual Sisto’s
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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.