Here’s what we’re most excit­ed to watch at Sun­dance 2020

All images cour­tesy of Sun­dance Institute.

Christ­mas has come a lit­tle ear­ly in the form of the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val pro­gramme, which show­cas­es an impres­sive range of glob­al tal­ent across nar­ra­tive fea­tures, doc­u­men­taries, shorts and their inno­v­a­tive New Fron­tier slate.

As always, the fes­ti­val will play host to a swath of excit­ing pre­mieres from glob­al tal­ents. After Mud­bound was crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed in 2016, Dee Rees returns with an adap­ta­tion of Joan Didion’s nov­el ​‘The Last Thing He Want­ed’, fea­tur­ing an impres­sive cast includ­ing Anne Hath­away, Ben Affleck and Willem Dafoe. We’re also keen to check out Emer­ald Fennell’s Promis­ing Young Woman, star­ring Carey Mul­li­gan as a woman seek­ing revenge – a trail­er has already dropped, and it looks intrigu­ing to say the least.

In the US and World Dra­mat­ic Com­pe­ti­tion strands, 47 per cent of the film­mak­ers select­ed are women, and 53 per cent are peo­ple of colour, prov­ing the festival’s com­mit­ment to cham­pi­oning under­rep­re­sent­ed voic­es. Among the films announced, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (star­ring Burn­ing and Sor­ry to Both­er You​’s Steven Yuen) and Eliza Hittman’s Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always are like­ly to be hot tick­ets, as well as Josephine Decker’s long-await­ed Shirley Jack­son biopic, Shirley, star­ring Elis­a­beth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg.

We’re also intrigued by Edson Oda’s Nine Days, which fea­tures a pret­ty impres­sive cast of Win­ston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Bene­dict Wong, Bill Skars­gård and Tony Hale, and sounds rem­i­nis­cent of David Lowery’s A Ghost Sto­ry from its log­line: ​“In a house dis­tant from the real­i­ty we know, a reclu­sive man inter­views prospec­tive can­di­dates – per­son­i­fi­ca­tions of human souls – for the priv­i­lege that he once had: to be born.”

After Joan­na Hogg’s The Sou­venir was the toast of last year’s fes­ti­val, the UK is well-rep­re­sent­ed too. Ben Whishaw stars as a bank rob­ber (!) in Aneil Karia’s Surge, while Jer­ry Rothwell’s The Rea­son I Jump, based on the best-sell­ing book by Nao­ki Higashi­da, explores the lives of non-ver­bal autis­tic peo­ple around the world.

We could hon­est­ly write a whole tome explor­ing the embar­rass­ment of rich­es in the dra­mat­ic and doc­u­men­tary com­pe­ti­tions (we haven’t even men­tioned new work from Bran­don Cro­nen­berg, Miran­da July plus Vig­go Mortensen’s direc­to­r­i­al debut) but there’s plen­ty more to talk about in the short film, episod­ic and New Fron­tier strands too.

In the Indie Episod­ic pro­gramme, William Kirkley’s Awk­ward Fam­i­ly Pho­tos explores the sto­ry behind the pop­u­lar web­site of the same name, chron­i­cal­ly the hilar­i­ous, baf­fling fam­i­ly snaps which have become viral sen­sa­tions, while in Spe­cial Events, Mari­na Zenovich’s Lance pro­vides a com­pelling psy­cho­log­i­cal por­trait of dis­graced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Sundance’s shorts pro­gramme pre­miered the orig­i­nal Whiplash and Thun­der Road shorts, and this year Michael Arcos’ Valerio’s Day Out has caught our atten­tion, about a young jaguar who escapes from a zoo. Stick­ing with the ani­mal theme, Bernar­do Britto’s Hud­son Geese, about a Cana­di­an goose remem­ber­ing his last migra­tion, sounds like it might be a tearjerker.

Over in the New Fron­tier strand, film­mak­ers and artists push the bound­aries and medi­ums of sto­ry­telling with VR, AR, AI and biotech. Char­lie Shack­le­ton, along­side Oscar Raby and Richard Mis­ek, explores how we watch films with VR expe­ri­ence A Machine for View­ing, while Chom­sky vs Chom­sky: First Encounter uses AI con­struct­ed from the dig­i­tal traces left behind by lead­ing philoso­pher Noam Chom­sky. Switzerland’s Dance Trail is an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty expe­ri­ence allow­ing users to place dancers any­where in the real world via site-spe­cif­ic tech and a mobile app.

This is just a glimpse at what’s on offer at Sun­dance in 2020 – the full pro­gramme is now online to explore, whether you’re plan­ning on going to the fes­ti­val or just want to know what to watch out for next year. But with so much great film­mak­ing on offer, the real prob­lem is fig­ur­ing out how to pack it all into just 10 days…

The Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val takes place from 23 Jan­u­ary to 2 Feb­ru­ary, 2020. Pass­es are now on sale, and indi­vid­ual tick­ets go on sale Tues­day, 21 January.