WFF Alumni & Friends at Sundance 2021
Source: Sundance
The upcoming Sundance Film Festival just announced its 2021 lineup, with several films from WFF alumni and friends included in this year’s program! In step with many of its festival peers in the COVID era, all of the films in the Sundance 2021 catalogue will be available to stream online in the United States, with specific films opting to stream globally. In-person screenings will occur at drive-in and art house venues across the country. For those of you stuck inside, this is the perfect opportunity to get a first look at future blockbuster titles and works from up-and-coming auteurs.
The 2021 Sundance Film Festival will run from January 28th - February 3rd. Tickets go on sale January 7th.
Below are some highlights from our community of filmmakers, friends and supporters:
LAND - When Edee’s life is tragically altered, she loses the ability to connect with the world and people she once knew. She retreats to a forest in the Rocky Mountains with a few supplies and leaves her old life behind indefinitely. The beauty of her new surroundings is undeniable yet quickly humbling as she struggles to adjust and prepare for the winter ahead. Directed by Robin Wright. Produced by WFF Advisory Board member Peter Saraf and executive produced by WFF Advisory Board member John Sloss.
STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET - Can you tell me how to get, how to get to SESAME STREET? Based on Michael Davis’s best-selling book of the same name, Marilyn Agrelo's film STREET GANG explores how creator Joan Ganz Cooney, original series director Jon Stone, and legendary Muppets creator Jim Henson—among other key talents—joined forces to create a children's television show that would become a groundbreaking cultural phenomenon. Directed by WFF alum Marilyn Agrelo.
PASSING - Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson), a refined, upper-class 1920s woman, finds breezy refuge from a hot summer day in the grand tearoom of New York City’s Drayton Hotel. Across the room, she spots a blond woman staring her down. Irene wants to steal away, but before she can, Clare Kendry (Ruth Negga) rushes over to stop her. It turns out the two were in high school together, and while both are African American women who can “pass” as white, they have chosen to live on opposite sides of the color line. Now, their renewed acquaintance threatens them both. Directed by Rebecca Hall and edited by WFF Advisory Board member Sabine Hoffman.
SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) - In 1969, during the same summer as Woodstock, a different music festival took place 100 miles away. More than 300,000 people attended the summer concert series known as the Harlem Cultural Festival. It was filmed, but after that summer, the footage sat in a basement for 50 years. It has never been seen. Until now. Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, produced by WFF alum David Dinerstein and executive produced by WFF alum Marie Therese Guirgi.
SONS OF MONARCHS - Enchanted by the monarch butterflies of Michoacán, Mexico, since he was a child, Mendel dedicates his career as a scientist in New York to mapping out the monarch’s genetics. But he is haunted by flashbacks of being orphaned alongside his older brother, Simon, when their parents died in a flood. When Mendel travels home to attend the funeral of his grandmother, it's clear Simon harbors deep resentment toward him for having left. Migrating back and forth between Mexico and New York, Mendel starts to neglect his new girlfriend and grows spiritually restless as he obsesses over the iconic butterfly. Then he confronts his brother about what really happened the night their parents died. Written and directed by WFF alum Alexis Gambis.
MAYDAY - An unusual storm is approaching, and it’s about to change everything for Ana (Grace Van Patten). After a short circuit at her workplace mysteriously transports her to an alternate world, she meets a crew of female soldiers caught in an endless war. Along a strange and rugged coastline, men face the stark truth lurking behind damsels who appear to be in distress. Under the leadership of Marsha (Mia Goth), Ana trains as a sharpshooter and discovers a newfound freedom in this uninhibited sisterhood. She soon senses she may not be the ruthless killer they expect, though, and time is running out for her to find a path home. Directed by Karen Cinorre and produced by WFF alum Lucas Joaquin.
IN THE SAME BREATH - Acclaimed filmmaker Nanfu Wang navigates the origin and spread of COVID-19 from Wuhan to the United States through a lens both personal and geopolitical in scale. The result is a wrenching, wide-reaching documentary that contextualizes the trauma experienced by health-care workers and the families of loved ones lost. At the same time, the documentary probes President Xi Jinping’s and President Donald Trump’s eerily similar responses to the pandemic: Both men spread disinformation and sowed mass confusion during the most critical moments of the pandemic. Directed by Nanfu Wang and produced by WFF alum Julie Goldman.
AMY TAN: UNINTENDED MEMOIR - Literary titan Amy Tan analyzes her life, her work, and her family—in the present and past tense—in this longitudinal biopic directed by [WFF alum] James Redford. As Tan traces her childhood through THE JOY LUCK CLUB and her later compositions, she dissects issues of representation, multigenerational trauma, and the stigma and challenge of illness. Forcefully matrilineal in focus, this film moves through generations of Tan’s family, revealing listening as the heart of Tan’s creative practice and contextualizing the patience with which Tan broke through barriers and waited on the other side, welcoming the world to join her.