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Actors John Early (My Trip to Spain), Donald Elise Watkins (EMERGENCY) and Lily McInerny (Palm Trees and Power Lines) assembled for the Cinema Cafe Fresh Faces panel at the Sundance Film Festival.   Hosted by writer/director Joey Soloway, who set the tone perfectly for a loose, casual and entertaining interaction while they tackle some heady subjects.

In addition to minimizing political pluralism, pitting social groups against one another, and consolidating power by ginning up enemies of the state, authoritarian regimes survive and thrive by strangling hope — targeting those able to land real, sustained, and potentially lethal critiques to the body politic, and making examples out of them. In Russia over the last decade or so, no homegrown figure has posed more of a threat to the iron-fisted rule of President Vladimir Putin (who’s so spooked that he won’t refer to him by name) than Alexei Navalny, a lawyer whose anti-corruption activism catapulted him to the status of chief opposition leader.

Documentaries have, for the most part, replaced ethical journalism. If you read this as a journalist and you are offended, think about this: how often these days are we able to read the real story amidst the headline-grabbing sensationalism, opinionated punditry, and time-restricted blurbs instead of facts researched patiently and well that has replaced straightforward information? Documentary filmmakers have the luxury of time, something that has long been lost in the fast news cycles that cater to and cause attention deficit disorder.

Easterseals Disability Film Challenge Founder and Director, Nic Novicki, who presented at the Golden Globes this year, kicked off the 2022 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge at the Sundance Film Festival.    He was joined by Karim Ahmad, Director of Outreach and Inclusion for the Sundance Institute; and eight-time film challenge participants.

Multi-award-winning actress Emma Thompson, who stars in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, joins Scottish actress and filmmaker Karen Gillan, who takes on the lead in Dual, for the virtual Sundance Film Festival Cinema Café series.   There’s a common thread between the two disparate films about socially awkward women who pay for unusual services.

Fat-shaming sinks to a new low in Piggy, a horror flick. The movie follows a young girl, Sara (Laura Galán ).

The feature film debut of Meg Smaker, Jihad Rehab uses extraordinary access to tell the story of the attempted de-radicalization of a small group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees at a Saudi Arabian rehabilitation center. In the process, it asks viewers to consider the legacy and still-rippling impacts of the events of September 11, 2001.

Danish director Christian Tafdrup takes audiences on a horror-filled ride in his third directorial effort, Speak No Evil, and makes a case that “vacation friendships” should remain a fond snapshot in our memory, never to be revisited. The story is about a Danish family holidaying in Tuscany who meets a family from the Netherlands, with whom they become friends.

Spider-Man: No Way Home has now reached the $1 billion benchmark internationally. With this feat, the Tom Holland blockbuster joins an elite list of ten movies that reached the $1 billion milestones overseas.

You Won't Be Alone is a folklore horror film directed by Macedonian-Australian, Goran Stolevski, who makes his feature film debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Set in the 19th century, Nevena (Sara Klimoska) is a young girl from a mountain village in Macedonia who is taken from her mother and transformed into a witch by an ancient shape-shifting creature, the Wolf Eateress/Old Maid Maria (Anamaria Marinca).