In a Sundance Film Festival defined by the coronavirus pandemic, the New Frontier section devoted to experimental projects like virtual reality films and interactive performance art was also radically reimagined. The section is often one of Sundance’s most intensely physical experiences; in 2020, it included a series of VR films viewed while floating in a swimming pool. In 2021, during an entirely remote festival, it pushed for something different: making our own homes feel otherworldly.
Pared down to 14 projects, this year’s New Frontier focused on web art and social media alongside virtual and augmented reality experiences. The result was a show that felt intimate and intriguing and set a model for showcasing interactive art online.
Community Can Save Us: How Three New Media Works Spoke to the Challenges of Modern Times IndieWire 2/6/2021
Editor’s note: Each year, IndieWire collaborates with MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program by inviting students to reflect on Sundance’s New Frontier program.
Sundance’s New Frontiers’ team faced a new challenge in 2021: to program a body of work that grapples with contemporary issues through emerging media. In an ongoing and uncertain COVID-19 reality, what would such mediums be able to provide that other traditional platforms couldn’t? While it may have started off as a larger question on festival trends, it turned into a plethora of experiences some VR, some computer-generated and some mobile to highlight our own personal reckonings within a collective moment.
Sundance Film Festival will let you hang out in space next to the ISS (apparently)
The fest s New Frontier program always packed with virtual reality and other tech-driven storytelling is pulling out all the stops next month during Sundance s mostly virtual festival. Listen - 08:13
Sundance typically takes place in Park City, Utah. Getty Images
The Sundance Film Festival is going more virtual than ever, which is saying something for the fest that helped put virtual reality on Hollywood s radar.
Running for eight days starting Jan. 28, Sundance will take place both on custom online platforms and through in-person events, including satellite screenings across the US as permitted by COVID-19 public-health protocols. But no part is going more virtual than New Frontier, the fest s branch focused on cutting-edge storytelling. In recent years, New Frontier s emphasis on tech-driven
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.