Sundance 2018: 20 Must-See Diverse Films and Documentaries
This year’s Sundance Film Festival is full of diverse and powerful films and we’ve compiled a list of the ‘Films to Watch’ and keep on your radar. On the list are feature film directorial debuts from Idris Elba (Yardie) and Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), along with familiar names such as Spike Lee (Pass Over), Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men) and Qasim Basir (A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.). Actors Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Lakeith Standfield and Forest Whitaker are just some of the stars who are featured onscreen.
A handful of films by female directors and writers of color are making Sundance appearances such as Katrelle N. Kindred's War Paint; Zambian-born Rungano Nyongi's I Am Not a Witch ; and Hair Wolf by Mariama Diallo. Well-known playwright Radha Blank shares writing credits with Janece Shaffer and Cole Wiley on Anthony Mandler’s Monster. As a staunch supporter of women of color in this industry, it’s hard not to notice that men still dominant the Sundance Festival. And in light of #metoo movement, this fact was particularly poignant. Ironically, Amy Adrion’s documentary premiere of Half the Picture addresses the issue of gender discrimination and what women are facing in the entertainment industry head on.
Yet, I’m still rooting for all of these films and will be following their progress as they continue to build momentum:
1. A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.
Cass (Omari Hardwick), a handsome USC grad stalled in his career, is getting lost in the alcohol- and drug-infused world of LA club promotion. On the night of the 2016 presidential election, he meets Frida (Meagan Good), a beautiful, spirited Midwestern visitor dealing with a difficult breakup. Their chemistry is undeniable. Nothing will ever be the same again. With a sense of quiet enchantment and magnitude in the mundane, director Qasim Basir has created a visually sensuous, dreamlike film unspooling in real time, seemingly in one continuous take, that transports you to a singular moment in time—election night—when the texture of life seemed to indescribably yet drastically change. (NEXT)
Director: Qasim Basir
Screenwriter: Qasim Basir, Samantha Tanner
Director of Photography: Steven Holleran
Principal Cast: Omari Hardwick, Meagan Good, , Jay Ellis, Kenya Barris, Dijon Talton, Wesley Jonathan
2. Blindspotting
Collin (Daveed Diggs) is trying to make it through his final days of probation for an infamous arrest he can’t wait to put behind him. Always by his side is his fast-talking childhood bestie, Miles (Rafael Casal), who has a knack for finding trouble. They grew up together in the notoriously rough Oakland, a.k.a. “The Town,” which has become the new trendy place to live in the rapidly gentrifying Bay Area. But when Collin’s chance for a fresh start is interrupted by a life-changing missed curfew, his friendship with Miles is forced out of its comfortable buddy-comedy existence, and the Bay boys are set on a spiraling collision course with each other. Directed by Carlos López Estrada, Blindspotting focuses on today’s intersection of race and class. The film's stars—Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs—also co-wrote the script. (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director: Carlos López Estrada
Screenwriter: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Director of Photography: Robby Baumgartner
Principal Cast: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones
3. Burden
After opening a KKK shop, Klansman Michael Burden falls in love with a single mom who forces him to confront his senseless hatred. After leaving the Klan and with nowhere to turn, Burden is taken in by an African-American reverend, and learns tolerance through their combined love and faith.
Director and screenwriter: Andrew Heckler
Cinematographer: Jeremy Rouse
Principal Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wilkinson, Usher Raymond. World Premiere
4. Come Sunday
Based on the true story of a controversial and courageous man of God, Come Sunday elegantly and respectfully captures the authentic texture and tone of Bishop Carlton Pearson’s devout world. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s tour-de-force performance embodies the effusive charisma and grounded humility of a character with everything to lose, yet even more to gain by heeding his convictions. (World Premiere)
Director: Joshua Marston
Screenwriter: Marcus Hinchey
Director of Photography: Peter Flinckenberg
Principal Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Condola Rashad, Jason Segel, Lakeith Stanfield, Martin Sheen
5. Crime + Punishment
Meet the NYPD12: a group of minority whistleblower officers who risk everything to expose racially discriminatory policing practices and smash the blue wall of silence. Crime + Punishment is a captivating investigation into the New York Police Department’s outlawed practices of quota-driven policing and officer retaliation. Using secret recordings between officers and commanders, firsthand accounts, and emotional testimony, the NYPD12 detail the explosive truth when no one else will listen. In the meantime, Manuel Gomez, an ex-cop turned private investigator, collects testimony from young minorities who have been affected by these policies and targeted by officers in the name of fighting crime.
Told from the rarely heard perspective of active whistle blower officers and the young men and women of color they police, Crime + Punishment is a once-in-a-generation film that considers the complexities of police work when faced with the unjust systemic and institutional practices fueling social justice movements across the U.S. (U.S. Documentary Competition)
Director: Stephen Maing
Cinematographer: Stephen Maing
6. Emergency
Faced with an emergency situation, a group of young Black and Latino friends carefully weigh the pros and cons of calling the police. (U.S. Narrative Short)
Director: Carey Williams
Screenwriter: K.D. Dávila
7. Half the Picture
Gender-parity experts and academics discuss Hollywood’s dismal employment practices, and these conversations are woven between interviews with a wealth of prominent women directors (including Kasi Lemmons, Catherine Hardwicke, Penelope Spheeris, Ava DuVernay, and many others), telling their stories of breaking into a male-centered business. They confirm the double standards that still exist while eloquently outlining their career paths, their struggles, and their hopes for the future.
First-time director Amy Adrion smartly deals with the inherent sexism in the industry and considers many of the stereotypes and biases that have prevented women from rising through the ranks. Amid the current political climate and recent cascade of sexual harassment allegations, the time to listen and act is now. (Documentary Premiere)
Director: Amy Adrion
Cinematographers: Yamit Shimonovitz, Soraya Sélène
Additional Cinematography: Cat Deakins, Jeanne Tyson, Eve Cohen, Jenn Gittings, Elle Schneider
8. Hair Wolf
In a black hair salon in gentrifying Brooklyn, the local residents fend off a strange new monster: white women intent on sucking the lifeblood from black culture. (U.S. Narrative Short)
Director and screenwriter: Mariama Diallo
9. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Photographer and filmmaker RaMell Ross employs the integrity of nonfiction filmmaking and the currency of stereotypical imagery to fill in the gaps between individual black male icons. Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a lyrical innovation to the form of portraiture that boldly ruptures racist aesthetic frameworks that have historically constricted the expression of African American men on film. In the lives of protagonists Daniel and Quincy, quotidian moments and the surrounding southern landscape are given importance, drawing poetic comparisons between historical symbols and the African American banal.
Images are woven together to replace narrative arc with visual movements. As Ross crafts an inspired tapestry made up of time, the human soul, history, environmental wonder, sociology, and cosmic phenomena, a new aesthetic framework emerges that offers a new way of seeing and experiencing the heat, and the hearts, of people in the Black Belt region of the U.S., as well as black people far beyond.
(U.S. Documentary Competition)
Director, Writer, Cinematographer: RaMell Ross
10. Hearts Beat Loud
As single dad Frank (Nick Offerman) prepares to send hardworking daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons) off to UCLA pre-med, he also reluctantly realizes he has to accept that his own record-store business is failing. Hoping to stay connected with his daughter through their shared love of music, he urges her to turn their weekly “jam sesh” into an actual band. Channeling Sam’s resistance into a band name, they unexpectedly find We’re Not a Band’s first song turning into a minor Spotify hit, and they use their songwriting efforts to work through their feelings about the life changes each of them faces. (World Premiere)
Director: Brett Haley
Screenwriter: Brett Haley
Director of Photography: Eric Lin
Principal Cast: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, Toni Colette
11. I Am Not a Witch
After nine-year-old Shula is accused of being a witch by her fellow villagers, she is ushered to the state authorities for judgment, whereupon she is immediately declared guilty and unceremoniously sentenced to exile in a camp for witches of all ages. Upon arrival, she is tied to a long, white ribbon connected to a large coil whose removal, she is told, will transform her into a goat. Just like Shula, the camp denizens have been scapegoated and gathered together, occasionally expected to perform miracles. Writer/director Rungano Nyongi’s deft directorial instincts unfurl this tale of interconnected vignettes in true mythological fashion. (Sundance Spotlight)
Director: Rungano Nyongi
Writer: Rungano Nyongi
Cinematographer: David Gallego
Principal Cast: Margaret Mulubwa, Henry B.J. Phiri, Nancy Mulilo, Margaret Sipaneia
12. King in the Wilderness
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership during the bus boycotts, the sit-ins, and the historic Selma-to-Montgomery marches is now considered the stuff of legend. But left out of the history books is much of what happened afterward, during the last three years of his life. King in the Wilderness reveals a conflicted leader who, after the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, faced an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum; the Black Power movement saw his nonviolence as weakness, and President Lyndon B. Johnson saw his anti–Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible. King’s fervent belief in peaceful protest became a testing point for a nation on the brink of chaos. (Documentary Premiere)
Director: Peter Kunhardt
Writer: Chris Chuang
Cinematographer: Clair Popkin
13. Monster
Adapted from the award-winning young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers, Monster is about Steve Harmon (played by Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a bright, sensitive 17-year-old who is on trial for acting as a lookout during an armed robbery. Before his arrest, he was an honors student and aspiring filmmaker taking street-level snapshots and on-the-fly footage of neighborhood life. Now, Steve is seen as just another young black criminal, assumed guilty and labeled a monster. But Steve and his lawyer declare his innocence and attempt to defy the odds in a bid to win his freedom. The film is was directed by well-known music video director Anthony Mandler. (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director: Anthony Mandler
Screenwriter: Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, Janece Shaffer
Director of Photography: David Devlin
Principal Cast: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Rakim Mayers, Jennifer Ehle and Tim Blake Nelson
14. Monsters and Men
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, Monsters and Men explores the moral depths of social responsibility through Manny Ortega, a man who films on his phone a white police officer wrongfully gun down a neighborhood street hustler. Now he’s faced with a dilemma: release the video and bring unwanted exposure to himself and his family, or keep the video private and be complicit in the injustice?
Green tells the story of how the footage affects the lives of three upstanding men in Bed–Stuy—a young father striving to support his new family, an African American cop dealing with the fallout of his colleague’s mistake, and a star high school athlete who becomes politicized by the incident. Each man is very different, but they equally feel the urgency of the question they must all face: should I take moral action or remain safely on the sidelines? (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Screenwriter: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Director of Photography: Patrick Scola
Principal Cast: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Chante Adams, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan
15. Night Comes On
Filmmaker Jordana Spiro and co-writer Angelica Nwandu paint a tough but intimate portrait of sisterhood amid a hostile landscape where kids and young adults, desperate for guidance, are instead forced to fend for themselves. Naturalistic dialogue and restrained but deeply felt dynamics between the two sisters breathe humor and warmth into scenes otherwise loaded with tension. Night Comes On is a raw and lyrical coming-of-age tale and a testament to Spiro’s gifts as a nuanced and empathetic storyteller on the rise. (NEXT)
Director: Jordana Spiro
Screenwriter: Jordana Spiro, Angelica Nwandu
Director of Photography: Hatuey Viveros Lavielle
Principal Cast: Dominique Fishback, Tatum Hall, John Earl Jelks, Max Casella, James McDaniel
16. Pass Over
A provocative riff on Waiting for Godot, capturing the poetry, humor and humanity of this urgent and timely play about two young black men talking shit, passing the time and dreaming of the promised land. (World Premiere)
Created by: Spike Lee, Danya Taymor
Playwright/Screenwriter: Antoinette Nwandu
Principal Cast: Jon Michael Hill, Julian Parker, Ryan Hallahan, Blake DeLong
17. Sorry to Bother You
Lakeith Stanfield, known for his standout role in Get Out, stars in Sorry to Bother You, an intelligent comedy by Boots Riley who also contributes to the soundtrack. Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a 30-something telemarketer with self-esteem issues who discovers a magical selling power living inside of him. Suddenly he’s rising up the ranks to the elite team of his company, which sells heinous products and services.
The upswing in Cassius’s career raises serious red flags with his brilliant girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a sign-twirling gallery artist. But the unimaginable hits the fan when Cassius meets the company’s cocaine-snorting, orgy-hosting, obnoxious, and relentlessly optimistic CEO, Steve Lift (Armie Hammer). (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director/Writer: Boots Riley
Director of Photography: Doug Emmett
Principal Cast: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Steven Yuen, Jermaine Fowler, Armie Hammer, Omari Hardwick
18. TYREL
Sundance veteran Sebastian Silva directs TYREL, a timely, provocative, and brilliant observation of the idea of otherness in today’s American climate. Jason Mitchell plays Tyler, a black man who joins his friend on a trip to the Catskills for a weekend birthday party with several people he doesn’t know. As soon as they get there, it’s clear that (1) he’s the only black guy, and (2) it’s going to be a weekend of heavy drinking. Although Tyler is welcomed, he can’t help but feel uneasy in “Whitesville.” The combination of all the testosterone and alcohol starts to get out of hand, and Tyler’s precarious situation starts to feel like a nightmare. (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Director: Sebastian Silva
Screenwriter: Sebastian Silva
Cinematographer: Alexis Zabe
Principal Cast: Jason Mitchell, Christopher Abbott, Michael Cera, Caleb Landry Jones, Ann Dowd
19. War Paint
A young black girl in South L.A. experiences a series of events at the convergence of racism and sexism during the 4th of July holiday.
Director and screenwriter: Katrelle N. Kindred
20. Yardie
Based on the cult novel by Victor Headley, Idris Elba’s directorial debut fuses the hard-boiled gangster genre with a dramatic coming-of-age period piece, bringing to life characters who struggle to find forgiveness while making their own paths between two worlds. Elba expertly re-creates the atmosphere of the times with an astute eye for detail and an evocative soundtrack that captures the tumultuous spirit of Kingston and London in the ’80s—where identity, culture, and even the cities themselves were in flux. (World Dramatic Competition)
Director: Idris Elba
Screenwriter: Brock Norman Brock, Martin Stellman
Director of Photography: John Conroy
Principal Cast: Aml Ameen, Shantol Jackson, Stephen Graham, Fraser James, Sheldon Shepherd, Everaldo Cleary
