Malta film Luzzu to compete at the Sundance Film Festival in the US
Malta film at Sundance Festival: Luzzu follows the fictional story of a struggling fisher who gets involved in black market fishing
16 December 2020, 2:01pm
by MaltaToday Staff
Malta produced film, Luzzu, will compete in the highly-acclaimed Sundance Film Festival, marking an important milestone for the Maltese film industry.
The film follows the fictional story of a struggling fisher who decides to get involved in black market fishing to support his wife and new born baby.
Luzzu is directed by Alex Camilleri and produced by Rebecca Anastasi.
Sundance praised the film, describing it as a “poignant, humanistic portrait of an eclipsing way of life”, and complemented Camilleri’s choice in “the quiet power of small moments and the underlying intensity of ordinary people pushed into untenable positions.”
Death in Venice (1971)
In last year’s
Midsommar, Ari Aster’s folk horror hit, Dan, an elderly gaunt man with long white hair and a beard, leaps from a cliff. Unfortunately, he survives the fall and has to have his face bashed in with a mallet. Dan is played by Björn Andrésen, first seen on-screen in 1970 in a small role in Roy Andersson’s
A Swedish Love Story but truly discovered the following year when Luchino Visconti cast him as Tadzio, the object of Dirk Bogarde’s obsession in
Death in Venice. Andrésen is the subject of a new documentary, Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri’s
Luzzu, a Maltese feature film directed by Alex Camilleri, has been selected for the prestigious World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
The festival will run from January 28 to February 3, 2021.
Luzzu follows the story of Jesmark, a struggling Maltese fisherman who is forced to turn his back on generations of tradition and risk everything by involving himself in black market fishing to provide for his wife and newborn child.
This is Camilleri’s debut feature film. It was produced by Rebecca Anastasi, Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger, 99 Homes), Alex Camilleri and Oliver Mallia.
Anastasi told the Times of Malta that
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.
Save this story for later.
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.