Perhaps the most surprising thing about the program announcement for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival released on Tuesday is how much it looks like the program announcement for any other year of the Sundance Film Festival.
The festival will be dramatically changed in its form from previous years. Taking place over seven days instead of the usual 11, the 2021 festival will showcase 72 feature films, down from around 120 in 2020. The event will be an ambitious hybrid, decoupled from its usual home in Park City, Utah, with mostly virtual events as well as some drive-in screenings in Los Angeles and events at satellite venues around the country.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the program announcement for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival released on Tuesday is how much it looks like the program announcement for any other year of the Sundance Film Festival.
The festival will be dramatically changed in its form from previous years. Taking place over seven days instead of the usual 11, the 2021 festival will showcase 72 feature films, down from around 120 in 2020. The event will be an ambitious hybrid, decoupled from its usual home in Park City, Utah, with mostly virtual events as well as some drive-in screenings in Los Angeles and events at satellite venues around the country.
I Was a Simple Man / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Makoto Yogi, Producers: Sarah S. Kim, Christopher Makoto Yogi, Matthew Petock, Yamato Cibulka) As a family in Hawaii faces the imminent death of their eldest, the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside. Cast: Steve Iwamoto, Constance Wu, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Tim Chiou, Boonyanudh Jiyarom. World Premiere
Jockey / U.S.A. (Director: Clint Bentley, Screenwriters: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Producers: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Nancy Schafer) An aging jockey is determined to win one last championship, but his dream is complicated when a young rookie shows up claiming to be his son. Cast: Clifton Collins Jr., Molly Parker, Moises Arias. World Premiere
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.
First images from Nicolas Cage action horror Prisoners of the Ghostland
Prisoners of the Ghostland, the English-language debut of prolific Japanese director Sion Sono (
Love Exposure), and thanks to Fandango we have four first-look images from the action horror which Cage has previously teased “might be the wildest movie I’ve ever made, and that’s saying something.”
Prisoners of the Ghostland sees Cage taking on the role of Hero, a notorious criminal “who is sent to rescue an abducted girl who has disappeared into a dark supernatural universe. They must break the evil curse that binds them and escape the mysterious revenants that rule the Ghostland, an East-meets-West vortex of beauty and violence.”