Sundance serves up provocative mix – Movies focus on topical, timely issues

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LOS ANGELES, Jan 20, (Agencies): The Sundance Film Festival opens in the mountains of Utah Thursday with a provocative mix of movies focused on topical and timely issues, as well as the usual selection of quirkier fare.

The annual gathering, founded in 1985 by iconic actor Robert Redford, will shine the spotlight on some 120 independent features, many by newcomers trying to make their mark.

“We sense that an independent film evolution is happening, and we see that in three ways: depth of storytelling, thorough understanding of craft, and experimenting in genre,” said festival director John Cooper.

“We also know that there’s a strong audience for independent films,” he added.

“I think these adventurous audiences are really going to be excited by the energy, creativity, and fresh perspectives in these films.”

The festival takes place as Hollywood is swept up in a storm of criticism over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscars acting nominations, and the issue is sure to come up in Utah.

The event — known for showcasing films that go on to receive critical acclaim and Hollywood awards season glory — features both documentaries and scripted dramas.

Deal

This year’s lineup offers an array of films that deal with timely issues such as gun violence in the United States, abortion and the rise of the Islamic State extremist group.

One documentary attracting a lot of festival buzz is “Newtown,” which explores the aftermath of the 2012 massacre that left 26 people dead, including 20 school children, in Connecticut.

“I felt like every time one of these incidents happen, we become more and more desensitized and wanted to sort of pierce through that desensitization by doing something that was way more experiential,” filmmaker Kim Snyder said in comments released by festival organizers.

Another documentary about US journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by the Islamic State group, will make its debut at Sundance.

Two separate films about the 1974 on-air suicide of a news reporter in Florida will also be featured, as will a quirky documentary entitled “Nuts,” about a small-town doctor in Depression-era Kansas who made a fortune claiming he could cure impotent men by transplanting goat testicles into them.

Other entries deal with hot-button issues including Jewish settlers in the West Bank, child brides in Afghanistan, online bullying and college hazing.

One US drama with an offbeat story line — “Swiss Army Man” — features a hopeless loner stranded in the wilderness who befriends a dead body, and together they embark on a bizarre journey home.

Fame

The dead body is played by British actor Daniel Radcliffe, who first shot to fame as the Boy Wizard in the “Harry Potter” series.

Even President Barack Obama is getting a spot in the limelight with a romantic drama that chronicles his 1989 romance as a young law associate with his future wife Michelle.

The lineup of foreign films includes “Halal Love (and Sex),” which pokes fun at the “complicated balancing act of romantic desire and religious devotion in the Muslim world,” and raunchy Indian comedy “Brahman Naman,” about a trio of nerdy college students bent on losing their virginity on a trip to Calcutta.

Overall, Sundance received 4,081 submissions for feature films, of which 98 were approved for world premiere slots.

In past years, films that have premiered at the festival have earned rave reviews, and many directors, including Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh built their reputations there.

Last year, the crop of movies shown at the festival yielded “Brooklyn,” which is up for three Oscars next month including best picture and best actress for its Irish star Saoirse Ronan.

Jennifer Lawrence became a sensation at Sundance six years ago with “Winter’s Bone,” for which she earned her first Oscar nomination. She is now an Oscar winner. The festival runs through Jan 31.

An abstract portrait of adolescent emotional dynamics, “The Fits” uses precise aesthetics to convey the alienation — and longing for social inclusion — of an 11-year-old tomboy trapped between two worlds. First-time writer-director Anna Rose Holmer crafts a meticulous mood of psychological isolation and beguiling mystery through her metaphorical tale, which exhibits less interest in traditional dramatic conventions than in situating viewers in its protagonist’s particular headspace. Though unlikely to make many commercial waves, this immensely promising debut — developed as part of a micro-budget program at the Venice Biennale institute that stipulates all projects be completed in under a year — suggests a bright future for its maker.

Set in Cincinnati’s West End, and taking place almost exclusively in a few confined environmental spaces, “The Fits” opens with a shot of young African-American Toni (Royalty Hightower) doing sit-ups in a boxing gym, her face rhythmically moving in and out of the middle of the screen, staring directly at us, as she exercises. Toni’s face will subsequently continue to be framed in such a front-and-center manner — a recurring visual motif that creates the sense that Toni and the audience are watching each other, just as Toni also perpetually gazes at both herself (in mirrors) and at her peers (through door windows).

Those contemporaries are the male boxers Toni trains with at the local recreation center — including her older brother, Jermaine (Da’Sean Minor), with whom she helps clean the place — and the female dancers who practice in an adjacent gym as part of the championship Lioness squad. A silent girl, Toni seems most comfortable in and around the ring, although Holmer’s camera repeatedly positions her as detached from her compatriots. That visual dislocation implies that she’s not of this male pugilistic world, and it continues once she takes a risk and tries out for the Lionesses — another clique in which her more masculine attitude and comportment don’t easily mesh.

As Toni awkwardly attempts (alongside other young tryouts) to perform a complicated dance routine, and later when she finds herself separated from the rest of the girls in hallways and locker rooms (where she spies on older girls’ boy talk from a bathroom stall), Holmer and cinematographer Paul Yee articulate Toni’s caught-between-two-social-spheres predicament through astute compositions rife with spatial tensions. Moreover, shots in which the camera rotates around Toni as she enters or exists a specific area beautifully contextualize her vis-a-vis her surroundings, and the kids from whom she feels so apart.

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