Festivals

Sweden’s Gothenburg Film Festival, established in 1979, is the leading film festival in Nordic countries. Between the end of January and the beginning of February it features more than 450 films from some 80 countries and sells around 130 000 tickets to the public.

Netflix has been an increasing presence on the world festival circuit, presenting films in Venice (Beasts of No Nation) and Cannes (Okja) and quickening the transition of streaming platforms to major players in world film production. It is a process that started in Sundance over ten years ago when Netflix was still a DVD rental service and debuted This Movie Not Yet Rated at the festival.

Rupert Everett joined a prestigious cohort of first time directors at Sundance 2018 (also making their debut here among others Paul Dano and Idris Elba). His first directorial effort, The Happy Prince recounts the lesser known latter days of English writer playwright and wit Oscar Wilde whom Everett also plays.

Among this year’s first-time directors at Sundance was long-time DP Reed Morano who joined a lineup made up of an unprecedented 38% female directors. Her I Think We’re Alone now can best be defined as a post-apocalyptic character study which (for most of the film) features Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning as the apparent sole survivors of an unspecified mass extinction event.

Women left their mark on the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, taking the Grand Jury Prize - The Miseducation of Cameron Post, directed by Desiree Akhavan- and all directing awards on each category: U. S.

On January 20, the HFPA hosted the Women Breaking Barriers panel at the Sundance Film Festival in association with the Sundance Institute. HFPA journalist Elisabeth Sereda moderated a spirited discussion among award-winning Tina Lifford (Queen Sugar), Golden Globe winner Octavia Spencer, Cathy Schulman, producer and president of Women in Film, Golden Globe winner Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) and Reed Morano, award-winning cinematographer, and director.

In an alternate universe, all filmmakers would happily dwell in a world like Sundance, removed from market pressures, a place where art precedes commerce. Visiting the Festival again after many years, I didn’t know what to expect.

Marc Turtletaub is a veteran producer who's no stranger to Sundance having been here with films like Sunshine Cleaning, Our Idiot Brother, Safety Not Guaranteed and of course Little Miss Sunshine. (Big Beach, the production company he heads, also has the animated version of Jack London’s White Fang and The Miseducation of Cameron Post showing in Park City this year).

You might think that given his long and varied career, Golden Globe winner Nicolas Cage would be a festival veteran from the early days of Sundance. But when we sat down with the actor at the Mustang Restaurant to talk about Mandy, a violent revenge film playing here in the Midnight section, we learned the surprising news that he is, in fact, a newcomer to the country’s foremost film festival.

Golden Globe winner Idris Elba, steps off the van accompanying him to our interview  wearing a long mouton coat to protect himself from the Park City cold. The 45-year-old British actor is at the Sundance Film Festival with his directorial debut, Yardie, in competition in the World Cinema section.