Top L–R: Oxytocin, The Vacation, Pro Pool, I AM HOME. Center L–R: Kylie, Willie Nelson and Family, The Night Logan Woke Up, Inglorious Liaisons. Bottom L–R: The Dalles, Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie, Pipes, Azeh
Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the Short Films and Indie Episodic projects selected for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. For in-person attendees, Indie Episodic works will have individual premieres and Shorts will screen in curated programs. Beginning January 24, all Indie Episodic projects and selected Shorts will also screen online through the end of the Festival. The 2023 Festival will take place January 19–29, 2023, in person in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort, along with a selection of films available online across the country January 24–29, 2023.
In addition, Online Ticket Packages are now on sale and the full schedule of in-person and online screenings is now live! Please visit festival.sundance.org/tickets to start planning your Festival experience.
“Short films and episodic projects are an integral aspect of the overall mission of the Sundance Institute — to empower artists who are taking risks, bringing new perspectives to the forefront, and creating work that entertains and provokes conversation,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “These platforms provide artists with the ability to expand beyond the boundaries of traditional cinema, while also motivating a unique creativity through an ever expanding format.”
The 64 Short Films for the 2023 lineup were selected from 10,981 submissions, the highest number on record. Of these submissions, 4,996 were from the U.S. and 5,985 were international. The four Indie Episodic projects were selected from 519 submissions. This upcoming year’s Short Film program includes work from 23 countries and the Indie Episodic represents works from five countries. Continue reading →
In-Person Ticket Packages Now On Sale; Online Ticket Package Sales Begin December 13
The Sundance Film Festival has announced its 2023 features program. This also includes the titles that is set to compete in the narrative and documentary categories.
The 2023 Festival will take place January 19–29, 2023, in person in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort, along with a selection of films available online across the country January 24–29, 2023. Festivalgoers will once again return to theaters to discover this upcoming year’s most impactful independent stories. In-Person Ticket Packages are currently on sale through December 16, Online Ticket Packages go on sale December 13 at 10 a.m. MT, and single film tickets go on sale January 12 at 10 a.m. MT.
Setting the scene, Day One Features will open the Festival in Park City: 11 features, plus a Shorts program, will illustrate the scope of Festival work across genre and form. Day One Features are birth/rebirth, L’Immensità, It’s Only Life After All, Kim’s Video, Little Richard: I Am Everything, The Longest Goodbye, The Pod Generation, Radical, Shayda, Sometimes I Think About Dying, and Run Rabbit Run. In addition, on January 19, the Institute will host the inaugural Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance presented by IMDbPro.
The celebration will kick off the Festival welcoming everyone back together again while raising funds for the Institute’s critical year-round artist support. The evening will honor Ryan Coogler, Nikyatu Jusu, W. Kamau Bell, and more whose journeys have been connected to Sundance throughout the years. In addition, in-person attendees will get to experience a robust offering of talks and events during the Festival, with more details to be announced.
“Leave No Trace” is a compassionate story of a father and daughter living simple lives in the great outdoors, and the circumstances that lead their paths to drift apart.
As simple as that sounds, the film is thought-provoking and powerful, touching on complex issues involving parenting, mental instability, and the alienation of many veterans who choose isolation as their refuge.
Directed by Debra Granik in her third feature film, “Leave No Trace” is a compelling character study that has been thoroughly embraced by film critics since its premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The story was adapted by Granik and her creative partner, Anne Rosellini, from the novel “My Abandonment” by Peter Rock.
The film stars Ben Foster as Will, a grizzled war veteran suffering from PTSD, living off the grid with his daughter, Tom, played by Thomasin McKenzie in her first major lead role.
The film follows Will and Tom living in a public park outside of Oregon, foraging for food and occasionally traveling by foot to town, primarily to pick up Will’s PTSD medication to sell to other military veterans on the black market. After being spotted in the forest by a jogger, the pair are brought into social services to live conventional lives. They are provided a home in rural Oregon where Will can also work on a tree farm. There, Tom meets a local farm kid who introduces her to his 4-H meetings.
However, it doesn’t take long before they’re back on the road. Will struggles to adjust to their new home and the social structure provided to them. “We can still think our own thoughts,” Will tells his daughter.
One day, while Will is injured and unconscious, Tom interacts with members of the community, meets kind strangers, borrows a dog from a former army medic, and even offers to pay for the temporary abode where Will is recuperating. She experiences a taste of normalcy and seems to appreciate it. But when Will decides it’s time for them to return to the forest, Tom objects.
“The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me,” she says. But this time, Will agrees, foreshadowing what may come next.
Foster is fantastic in the film. He has previously received acclaim for many of his intense roles, such as in “3:10 to Yuma” and “Hell or High Water.” He is more subdued here but fully embodies the character. Even with limited background information about Will, we understand that he is trapped within himself and sense his profound devotion and love for his daughter.
Granik’s prior film, the 2010 mystery drama “Winter’s Bone,” featured a breakthrough performance from the then-little-known Jennifer Lawrence, who later became one of the world’s biggest movie stars. This film might just have the same transformative effect on McKenzie. She displays talent beyond her years, skillfully conveying both the innocence and the evolution of her character.
“Leave No Trace” is a quiet and nuanced film that doesn’t succumb to excessive melodrama, even when the narrative reaches peak emotional conflict between the two leads. Nor does it criticize Will and Tom’s way of life. The beautiful cinematography by Michael McDonough, in fact, invitingly reveals spaces in nature that we know exist in our backyard but seldom experience.
“Leave No Trace” is set to open on June 29, 2018, in cinemas across the US.
