2021 Sundance Film Festival

If you have never had the pleasure to escape to France, Ma Belle, My Beauty, introduces us first to Bertie and Fred (Lucien Guignard and Idella Johnson) who live in an exquisite farmhouse in the south of France. Recently married musicians, the couple are about to depart on a tour; that is if Fred can transition his wife out of her depressed state.

In Knocking, a psychological thriller by Swedish director Frida Kempff, Molly (Cecilia Milocco) has been discharged from a mental institution, and her life is set to begin when she moves into a new apartment. But just as a heatwave sets in, her habitat turns menacing.

The closing credits, featuring some of the names of the filmmakers juxtaposed on a cave wall, beneath the sound of a crackling fire, speak in a powerfully direct and simple way to the need for storytelling, which is long hardwired into mankind. So, is this director Rodney Ascher’s sly way of acknowledging that his latest film, A Glitch in the Matrix, is itself an exercise in flamboyant narrative indulgence, despite its nonfiction roots? If so, it’s perhaps too cute by half, but also emblematic of the fitful engagement of this intellectually playful yet ultimately frustrating documentary, which unfolds as a mixture of epistemological surveying and philosophical spitballing.

The Guit brothers, Harpo and Lenny, are bringing their directorial debut movie, Mother Schmuckers, to the 2021 virtual edition of Sundance as the first ever Belgian entry to the famed Midnight Section devoted to genre and extreme cinema. Set in Brussels, the story follows two brothers, Issachar (Maxi Delmelle) and Zabulon (Harpo Guit – also co-director), both in their twenties, who have not quite emotionally evolved into manhood.

The ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has forced significant changes to the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, along with the rest of the world. But for the fourth consecutive year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) presented its panel this year titled: “Women Breaking Barriers: An Industry Shift” panel – in an exclusively virtual presentation on Saturday, January 30.

As with all film festivals, the opening night film is a coveted spot and helps set the tone for audience expectations. For the 2021 online edition of the Sundance Film Festival, that function fell to the drama Coda, written and directed by Sian Heder.

In 1969, famed Italian director Luchino Visconti went on a search to cast the critical part of Tadzio for his then upcoming film Death in Venice. When he discovered a 15-year-old Björn Andrésen in Sweden, he proclaimed that he had found ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’.

On January 30, 2021 this year's HFPA Women’s Panel at the Sundance Film Festival featured Zendaya, Halle Berry, Andra Day, Robin Wright, Sia, and Keri Putnam.   Hosted by Silvia Bizio and Elisabeth Sereda, "Women Breaking Barriers: An Industry Shift?” provided spirited and engaging discussion from five amazing storytellers and an extended question and answer session, with questions coming in real time from live stream viewers.

Tenoch Huerta’s career has taken a giant leap with a slew of first class roles in his native Mexican cinema. He won an Ariel Award and was nominated four other times, in productions like the renowned Sin nombre (by Cary Joji Fukunaga), and the streaming series Narcos: México, where he played Rafael Caro Quintero, as well as the upcoming The Forever Purge.

No crowds in front of the Egyptian Theatre, no snowboot-clad film fans drudging through the wintery town of Park City and no bustling Main Street. But also, no traffic jams on the first weekend and no waiting in long lines in front of the Eccles, Marc, or other screening locations, freezing and shivering in the hopes of getting in.