My Sundance 2022 Experience Ranked
- Heather German
- Feb 7, 2022
- 12 min read
My second year of the Sundance Film Festival is now over, and the award-winners have been announced. With 11 features under my belt this year, I saw almost double the amount of films compared to last year. The selection I had this year ran the full spectrum from some completely disposable titles to some knock-out hits that are early contenders for film of the year.
Last year, I did a video discussing my experience. This year, things have been a little difficult timing wise, and I’ve decided to do a write up instead. So, here we are; all 11 films I saw at Sundance this year ranked from worst to best.
Let’s get started…
11. Hatching
Director: Hanna Bergholm
Cast: Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Jani Volanen
Genre: Horror
Synopsis: A young gymnast who tries desperately to please her demanding mother, discovers a strange egg. She hides it and keeps it warm, but when it hatches, what emerges shocks them all.
I feel like the trend of “elevated horror” has finally shown its ugly side lately. It seems like too many up and coming filmmakers have bought into the idea that this trend truly is an elevation of horror and not simply a renaissance continuing forth trends and ideas that have always been present in the genre. I like the concept of Hatching, and I think Hanna Bergholm could make some really good nasty B horror, but ultimately the film seems too afraid of what it really is, and put far too much misplaced effort into being “artistic” and “profound.”
I love the idea of a girl raising a crow monster, and I love the campy but gross design of the monster itself. The twist that the film takes in its second half just didn’t work for me, though, and it’s made worse by just how intelligent the film seems to think it is for it. All the while, the dialogue is hamfisted, the acting hokey and the cinematography cheap, all in a way that would have only added to the charm had it not been trying so hard to be deep. In reality, it never manages to be anything more than a mild diversion, which is ultimately less than what it could have been had it played to its strengths. A missed opportunity, this.
Awards: None
Release Date: To be released in theaters and On Demand by IFC Midnight on April 29th, 2022
10. Framing Agnes
Director: Chase Joynt
Cast: Zackary Drucker, Chase Joynt, Jen Richards
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: FRAMING AGNES turns the talk show format inside out in response to media's ongoing fascination with trans people. The film breathes life into six previously unknown stories from the archives of the UCLA Gender Clinic in the 1950s.
While I watched Framing Agnes, I thought it was interesting. I liked how it played with form, the stories it recounted were fascinating, and the pacing flowed steadily enough to keep me from asking too many questions. I admire the conceit of this film; critiquing the media’s obsession with trans people and the narratives they are forced into while also attempting to tease out the truths behind the sensationalism. At the end of the day, however, I don’t think Framing Agneshas enough to say that hasn’t already been said.
Even a few seconds of critical thought reveal most of Framing Agnes’tricks to be smoke and mirrors. The candid-style behind-the-scenes footage feels distracting and the talking heads overpower the narratives the documentary supposedly centers. All the talk of trans lives beyond the spectacle is undercut entirely by the fact they are never really shown. There’s a genuinely powerful idea here beneath all of the fluff, and I don’t like to put down trans creators like this, but in its current form Framing Agnesfeels like it’s coming from a community that’s too scared to let its stories speak for themselves, and so it must resort to needless post-modern dissection that serves only to obfuscate rather than enlighten.
Trailer: N/A
Awards: NEXT Innovator Award, NEXT Audience Award
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
9. You Won’t Be Alone
Director: Goran Stolevski
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Anamaria Marinca
Genre: Drama, Horror
Synopsis: In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, a young girl is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit.
You Won’t Be Alone is folk horror by way of Terrence Malick. It’s definitely horror in its aesthetics; people die, bodies are dismembered, gore and viscera punctuate the drama which sometimes reaches particularly grim boiling points. Yet what stands out to me most about You Won’t Be Aloneis its beauty. Its protagonist is aimless, born without purpose and raised without freedom, gaining a perpetually childlike sense of wonder at the world as a result. There is no need for grand narratives when even the most simple and mundane wonders punctuate every single breath. Through a unique lens of gender fluidity and magical realism, You Won’t Be Aloneexplores the meaning of life from different angles and aims to capture it in all of its jagged sorrows and exquisite beauty.
It also made me realize that I don’t particularly enjoy Terrence Malick’s style much. It’s beautiful and exhilarating in small doses, but at a feature length it becomes monotonous and textureless to me. There will be those that fall in love with Goran Stolevski’s feature directorial debut in a truly complete way, but that wasn’t my experience. Every moment is full of wonder, but wonder cannot exist for me without mundanity, without a baseline. I admire this film, but for me it was more tiring than anything else.
Awards: None
Release Date: To be released in theaters by Focus Features on April 1st, 2022
8. Sirens
Director: Rita Baghdadi
Cast: Lilas Mayassi, Shery Bechara, Maya Khairallah
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: Lilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East's first all-female metal band, wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars.
Sirens was one of my most anticipated films at this year’s festival, and in many ways it’s a good one. The women we’re introduced to are subversive and badass, living their truth in a place that is hell bent on forcing them to fall in line with traditional gender roles. Their music sounds genuinely great, and I hope to check out more of it out soon. These women and their struggle deserve to be seen and validated. I just wish the film dug deeper.
For a film about a metal band, this documentary is quite sparse on the actual metal. It’s not just that it focuses more on the band members’ personal lives and less on their music itself; it’s in the editing, the soundtrack, the pacing. It feels slow and contemplative, with a casual pace and a mostly ambient score. It reads like Baghdadi & co were trying to widen the appeal and bring in more than just metal fans. To an extent I can see why, but in a documentary about sticking to your truth and expressing yourself regardless about what society says about you, this dilutes the message, and also robs it of much of the personality and charm it could have had. I cannot speak on behalf of these women as to whether or not they feel their story was done justice, I just feel that as a film, this could have been so much more.
Awards: None
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
7. Riotsville, USA
Director: Sierra Pettengill
Cast: Charlene Modeste
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: Welcome to Riotsville, a fictional town built by the US military. Using all archival footage, the film explores the militarization of the police and creates a counter-narrative to the nation's reaction to the uprisings of the late '60s.
Riotsville, USAis a fascinating documentary made up entirely of archival footage and voiceovers that provides a counter-narrative to the militarization of the police force beginning in the 1960’s. Through a slow journey into the heart of state violence and oppression, Sierra Pettengill shows us how our government looked at the ideals of the civil rights and anti-war movements and reacted with fear and hostility. They recognized the root of the problem, but instead of fixing it, they chose instead to obfuscate it, and create a future world where nobody could challenge their power ever again.
We now live in that world, and we’ve lived in it for so long that we’ve lost sight of what a better one might look like. Riotsvilledoesn’t really give us answers, but it starts a dialogue about how we got here in the first place. The first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge that it exists, after all. I didn’t find this quite as cutting or revelatory as something like Ava DuVernay’s 13th,but it’s nonetheless a dark and sobering portrait of the apparatuses of violence within a state as a monster of our own creation, with the sole purpose of making sure we never, ever again taste the light of freedom.
Trailer: N/A
Awards: None
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
6. Neptune Frost
Director: Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams
Cast: Cheryl Isheja, Bertrand Ninteretse, Eliane Umuhire
Genre: Musical, Science Fiction
Synopsis: An intersex African hacker, a coltan miner and the virtual marvel born as a result of their union.
Neptune Frost is an incredibly difficult film for me to evaluate. I am clearly so far from the target audience that it’s a bit hilarious to think I could ever objectively review this. And yet, it’s also incredibly important for everyone to recognize. This is a film that is not only created by Rwandans about colonialism and exploitation, but also features some of the most progressive casting and narratives I’ve ever seen in film. In a year at Sundance where a trans documentary won an audience award, the transgender narratives in this completely blow everything else at the festival out of the water - and that’s just one aspect of this film’s importance. It also works to reclaim the power of modern day technology for those who provide the source of that power but are never given any of its benefits.
In many ways it’s meandering and a bit aimless, but it makes up for this with an immense amount of creativity and passion. The musical is great and genuinely reflects the culture it’s coming from and themes it’s exploring without dialing it down in an attempt to garner a wider audience. The set and costume designs are unique and breathtaking, and the philosophical and cultural ideas on display are dense and fascinating to pick apart. The entire package is wrapped up in a genuine sense of punkish abrasiveness, not trying to appeal to oppressing cultures and in fact actively remaining defiant. In multiple occasions, characters directly challenge the camera, forcing themselves to be seen, to be heard. This may not be the best film of the festival, but it’s one of the most noteworthy; an angry shout from a people that are tired of being ignored and left out of the world built upon their backs.
Awards: None
Release Date: To be released by Kino Lorber, release date TBA
5. Nanny
Director: Nikyatu Jusu
Cast: Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Synopsis: AISHA, an immigrant Nanny, piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream.
The Grand Jury winner for the US Dramatic Competition was a bold, intense and frightening vision of class and race issues in America, specifically from the perspective of an immigrant. One of the greatest powers of cinema is to give a voice to the voiceless, to encourage a wider range of audiences to consider the lives and experiences of people that society has trained them to ignore and take for granted. Though Nanny is touted as a supernatural horror film, it works far better as an intense, ambiguous and artistic drama about the struggles of someone for whom the American dream and its promise of safety and stability is far more precarious than it seems, and requires sacrifices more dear than one could ever imagine.
My only problem with this film is that I feel the horror aspects don’t particularly work. It could have dropped the more straightforward hauntings in favor of a more surreal and ambiguous artistic approach. It actually almostnails that, but could do with a bit more David Lynch and a bit less Jennifer Kent. That being said, it’s an incredibly potent and powerful film that does an utterly fantastic job at making you empathize with its characters and show how the lure of a land that touts itself as one of opportunity is not quite the salvation that it may seem. Aisha has her new life - but at what cost did it come?
Trailer: N/A
Awards: US Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
4. Girl Picture
Director: Romance
Cast: Aamu Milonoff, Eleonoora Kauhanen, Linnea Leino
Genre: Romance
Synopsis: Mimmi, Emma and Rönkkö are girls at the cusp of womanhood, trying to draw their own contours. In three consecutive Fridays, two of them experience the earth moving effects of falling in love, while the third goes on a quest to find something she's never experienced before: pleasure.
Girl Picture is a fairly standard coming of age romance but it’s one that has just enough genuine heart and empathy for its characters, and just enough of a fresh angle, to stand out. It follows three girls over the course of three days as they wade through the murky ennui of young adult life and try and find meaning for themselves, ultimately doing so in the form of their connections with other people. Its minimalistic direction keeps it grounded in reality but it never wallows in any sort of misery; its characters are flawed people who do bad things sometimes but aren’t bad people, and the film is gentle and patient with them as they try and figure themselves out.
Ultimately, Girl Picturefeels like a more down to earth, dramatic version of Booksmart. The raunchy comedy is replaced by tenderness and emotion, but many of the core coming-of-age flourishes are intact. Its romantic leads have genuine chemistry with each other, and watching their young love bloom is beautiful. Overall, this is a charming film with excellent vibes that made for one of the most overall pleasant viewing experiences of the festival for me.
Awards: World Dramatic Competition Audience Award
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
3. All That Breathes
Director: Shaunak Sen
Cast: Mohammad Saud, Nadeem Shehzad
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: The darkening backdrop of Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protect one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the Black Kite.
All That Breathes is one that had to sit with me. My first viewing of it was right after You Won’t Be Alone, and having the two slowest, most spiritual and meditative films back to back killed my energy. Ultimately, though, this beautiful, searing experience left a mark on me that few others in the festival have. The sheer beauty of the bird photography would have been enough, but on top of that, All That Breathes isn’t a mere biography or nature doc but takes things one step further, making a stirring and revelatory statement on the interconnectedness of of man and nature in the wake of ecological devastation.
These types of themes have resonated with me quite a lot lately, and All That Breathes puts to words a few thoughts and feelings I’ve been having. The world it depicts is one that has been poisoned not only physically but spiritually. Mankind has cut itself off from nature, and has condemned itself to a solitary existence, one in which true connection and communication is impossible. As the situation becomes more and more dire, the only thing we can do is try and mend and salvage what we can.
Trailer: N/A
Awards: World Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize
Release Date: Not yet acquired, no release date yet.
2. Cha Cha Real Smooth
Director: Cooper Raiff
Cast: Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Evan Assante
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Synopsis: A young man who works as a Bar Mitzvah party host strikes up a friendship with a mother and her autistic daughter.
My top two slots are basically neck and neck and are completely interechangable dependent on my mood. Both of these are early contenders for film of the year for me, and both are absolutely ones to watch out for in the coming months. On its surface, Cha Cha Real Smoothmay seem like a rather embarrassingly named yet ultimately standard coming of age Sundance feature, but a second look reveals something special. It’s one of the funniest and most relatable films I’ve seen in quite some time, and I loved every single second of it.
The protagonist of Cha Cha Real Smooth, played brilliantly by director Cooper Raiff, is quite possibly one of my favorite film protagonists I’ve seen in years. He’s charming and kind and just the right amount of awkward to endearing, but he’s also not perfect. He has genuine flaws and makes mistakes, and is portrayed in a very honest way. His relationships feel authentic and are also full of emotional vulnerability and genuine chemistry. Even though there’s a lot of difference between me and him,much about the awkward existential anxieties of post-grad life is extremely relatable. Ultimately, this pairs really well as the sort of “good vibes only” companion to something like Shiva Baby,but is also something far greater in its own right.
Trailer: N/A
Awards: U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award
Release Date: To be released on Apple TV+, release date TBA
1. Fire of Love
Director: Sara Dosa
Cast: Miranda July, Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unraveling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing the most explosive imagery ever recorded.
Fire of Lovemade me feel like a kid again in the best possible sense. It filled me with a genuine, uncomplicated awe for the natural world in a way I haven’t felt in a while. Its excellently shot archival footage showcases the beautiful destruction of volcanoes in all of their natural glory. It’s one thing to know in an academic sense what volcanoes are capable of, but it’s another thing entirely to see them up close. They transform the world around them into alien landscapes, crafting entirely new, completely unique biomes in their wake. They are the heartbeat of the world, the most explosive incarnation of its cycle of destruction and renewal.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this utterly captivated by a documentary. It’s easily one of my favorites I’ve ever seen. It’s cinema at its best, captivating us with images and ideas while showing us things we don’t normally see, and inspiring in us a sense for adventure and wonder. I look forward to seeing this again and again, and you owe it to yourself to give it a watch as well.
Trailer: N/A
Awards: Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award
Release: To be released by National Geographic Documentary Films, Release Date TBA
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