This week, Park City, Utah becomes the home of indie filmmaking as the Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 21. This year the comprehensive website has a shiny new Audience Buzz page, which very helpfully lists the films that have got the most adds to personal schedules and views from the site. Ahead of the start of the festival, here is a brief rundown of the films already set to make waves this year.
Considering the clout of the Twilight franchise, it comes as no surprise to see its young star Kristen Stewart appearing in not one but two of the films already getting considerable attention. Attempting to buck career-suicide typecasting, she will be employing an angry face in Joan Jett biopic The Runaways, and a sad face in Welcome to the Rileys, (main photo) with James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo.
Also getting a fair bit of buzz is Howl, the biopic of Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg. Starring (a considerably more handsome than Ginsberg) James Franco, it is currently at the top of the list. And as last year’s critical hit Milk proved, there is clearly a very healthy interest in biopics of pivotal figures in countercultural history set in San Francisco and starring James Franco.
The Company Men is also causing something of a stir amongst festival aficionados. Considering it is a very starry, on-trend corporate downsizing drama from West Wing and ER alumni writer/director John Wells, and features appearances from Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones, this is really no surprise.
Elsewhere, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut, Jack Goes Boating is also on the buzz list. An offbeat NY love story, it looks like an indie darling in the making from the most talented Mr Hoffman. Another early film to look out for is Brit director Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me. Based on pulp writer Jim Thompson’s novel, starring Casey Affleck and described as a dark psycho-sexual thriller, it looks like a stylish addition to the prolific director’s canon.
Sundance is always the place to be for political and narratively-driven documentaries and this year looks to be no exception. In the US documentary competition and high up the buzz list, is Waiting For Superman, a timely doc about the failures of the public school system in America from director David Guggenheim which looks set to put real faces to the generation of No Child Left Behind.
Meanwhile, North Korea continues to both fascinate and horrify the West with one of the most striking films in the festival programme featuring the totalitarian state. Absurdly original-sounding Danish doc The Red Chapel follows a Danish journalist and two Korean comedians who, disguised as a theatre troupe, gain entrance into North Korea to stage a “cultural exchange”. If the slightly bonkers trailer is anything to go by, this deadpan doc looks like it could be a contender at this years ceremony in just over 10 days time.
