Crises of faith and incred­i­ble women: What’s on at Sun­dance Lon­don 2018

Bring­ing the spir­it of Park City, Utah to Lon­don, Eng­land is no small feat, but the kind folks at Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val have been attempt­ing it for the past few years, bring­ing a selec­tion of the best films from their Jan­u­ary extrav­a­gan­za across the pond for a series of exclu­sive pre­views and events. This year sees new work by estab­lished film­mak­ers includ­ing Lau­ren Green­field, Debra Granik and Desiree Akha­van pre­mier to British audi­ences, as well as the direc­to­r­i­al debuts of Idris Elba and Bo Burnham.

Burn­ham, best known as a stand-up come­di­an, is respon­si­ble for Eighth Grade – an illu­mi­nat­ing and excep­tion­al por­trait of teen­dom, pro­pelled by a mag­nif­i­cent lead per­for­mance from young actor Elsie Fish­er. Set dur­ing the final week of mid­dle school for awk­ward teenage out­sider Kay­la, it’s a tru­ly warm and com­pas­sion­ate look at the frag­ile and fleet­ing nature of youth, cap­tur­ing what it’s like to be young in 2018, but also, more uni­ver­sal­ly, writ­ing large the uni­ver­sal excru­ci­at­ing nature of being young and feel­ing every­thing and noth­ing all at once.

Else­where (and not tech­ni­cal­ly a Sun­dance film, but a TIFF favourite) Paul Schrader’s much-laud­ed come­back First Reformed received a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion ahead of its July 17 UK release. Star­ring Ethan Hawke in a career-best per­for­mance as a pious preach­er who expe­ri­ences a cri­sis of faith after attempt­ing to aid a young mem­ber of his con­gre­ga­tion, it’s a cin­e­mat­ic con­fes­sion­al booth – one in which ​“noth­ing can change, and there is no hope”. Bleak? Per­haps. An incred­i­ble insight into the death of Amer­i­ca? Undoubtedly.

There’s no hope either in Ari Aster’s chill­ing debut Hered­i­tary, which shows Toni Col­lette unrav­el­ling fol­low­ing a death in the fam­i­ly. A mas­ter­class in rein­vent­ing genre cin­e­ma, Aster’s remark­able debut is like­ly to ter­ri­fy, delight (and prob­a­bly offend) audi­ences in equal mea­sure, but most notably exam­ines the uncom­fort­able notion of what we pass onto future gen­er­a­tions, and how we try to be bet­ter than our own par­ents. It lands in UK cin­e­mas on June 15 –inci­den­tal­ly, you can read our review and inter­view with Col­lette in LWLies 75.

Final­ly, keep an eye out for Desiree Akhavan’s assured sec­ond film, The Mise­d­u­ca­tion of Cameron Post. Set in 1993, the film fol­lows an all-Amer­i­can teenag­er (played by a pitch-per­fect Chloe Mortez) who is shipped off to a Chris­t­ian con­ver­sa­tion camp after being caught with anoth­er girl on Home­com­ing night. Explor­ing the same fragili­ty of being young and in love as Eighth Grade as well as the reli­gious fal­li­bil­i­ty more bru­tal­ly exam­ined in First Reformed, it’s a qui­et, poet­ic look at under­stand­ing, iden­ti­ty, and the strength found in cre­at­ing your own family.

Sun­dance Lon­don runs June 1 – 3 at Pic­ture­house Cen­tral. For tick­ets and info vis­it pic​ture​hous​es​.com