A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of Robert Downey Jr. to the future phases of Marvel’s superhero film rollout. With Tuesday’s release of the limited edition Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray box set comes some corroboration, plus a cool scene of Iron Man doing some acrobatic hot-dogging just to put on his mask. It’s the highlight of this brief — and not exactly revelatory — Phase 2 preview clip that comes with the collection . Then again, with the release of Iron Man 3 just a little over a month away, why give away the store? Iron Man Flips Out Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of Robert Downey Jr. to the future phases of Marvel’s superhero film rollout. With Tuesday’s release of the limited edition Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled Blu-ray box set comes some corroboration, plus a cool scene of Iron Man doing some acrobatic hot-dogging just to put on his mask. It’s the highlight of this brief — and not exactly revelatory — Phase 2 preview clip that comes with the collection . Then again, with the release of Iron Man 3 just a little over a month away, why give away the store? Iron Man Flips Out Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
As mystifying as his 2004 sci-fier, Primer , albeit for entirely different reasons, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a stimulating and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking. It’s also a poem about pigs, a meditation on orchids, a cerebral-spiritual love story, an intensely elliptical sight-and-sound collage, and perhaps a free-form re-interpretation of Thoreau’s Walden . Surely the most challenging dramatic entry at Sundance this year, this unapologetically avant-garde work regards conventional narrative as if it were a not-especially-interesting alien species; the mainstream will take no notice, but adventurous auds are in for a strange and imaginative trip. Primer fans and hardcore art-film devotees will likely be the sole takers for this long-anticipated sophomore effort, which again finds Carruth taking on writing, directing, acting, producing, scoring, lensing and editing duties. He’s even serving as his own distributor this time, with plans to release the picture in L.A. and Gotham in April, followed by a quick transition to repeat-viewing-friendly smallscreen play. At the center of Upstream Color is a young woman, Kris ( Amy Seimetz ), who finds herself an unwitting participant in some exceedingly bizarre experiments. First a thief (Thiago Martins) attacks her and forces her to ingest a bio-engineered worm that brainwashes her into handing over her savings. When the critter starts to replicate inside her body, in scenes that give the picture a brief horror-movie spin, she’s rescued, after a fashion, by an older gentleman identified in the credits as Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who subjects her to a bizarre respiratory treatment involving one of his many farm pigs. Left with little to no memory of what has happened, Kris finds herself drawn to a young man ( Carruth ) who seems to have experienced the same ordeal. The two walk and talk, ride the subway, make love and at one point cradle each other in a bathtub. They wander a nondescript-looking city, exchanging dialogue laced with random repetition and impenetrable non sequiturs. Even as their actions and circumstances defy comprehension, a troubling and poignant idea rises to the surface: the universal human compulsion to construct a sense of identity and ascribe meaning to one’s life, to impose order on disorder. The futility of such a thing may well explain the befuddling, pretzel-like contours of the story; even the most attentive viewers may be hard-pressed to comprehend the significance of the women harvesting orchids, or why Sampler walks around using sound-recording equipment. Peculiar as it all may sound in outline, it’s even stranger to experience onscreen, arranged by Carruth in a complex symphonic framework that variously invokes Malick and Lynch in its narrative illogic, tactile lyricism and possible transmigration-of-souls subtext. The picture is so densely edited (by Carruth and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints helmer David Lowery) that no single shot seems to last more than mere seconds, which combines with the shallow-focus compositions to produce an experience of near-continual disorientation. Factor in the almost omnipresent synth score, layered under tinkling piano chords, and the film seems to be attempting to induce a state of synaesthesia. Walden , a frequent reference point here, provides a clue as to what Carruth is up to: In its intense levels of visual-aural stimulation, the film is at once transcendent and meditative, and in some ways a call for the sort of inner detox Thoreau prescribed. And since exalted literary works seem to be on the interpretive agenda, the transference of illness to a herd of pigs calls to mind nothing so much as the gospel accounts of Jesus casting out Legion by the Sea of Galilee. Pretentious or sublime, these ineffable spiritual overtones are finally what make Upstream Color so approachable, for all its mysteries: This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than Primer , not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same. One can only imagine what directions the actors were given in order to inhabit roles that seem to splinter and reassemble themselves at will, but Seimetz supplies a quietly haunting presence, particularly in the film’s tender closing fade. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
As mystifying as his 2004 sci-fier, Primer , albeit for entirely different reasons, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a stimulating and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking. It’s also a poem about pigs, a meditation on orchids, a cerebral-spiritual love story, an intensely elliptical sight-and-sound collage, and perhaps a free-form re-interpretation of Thoreau’s Walden . Surely the most challenging dramatic entry at Sundance this year, this unapologetically avant-garde work regards conventional narrative as if it were a not-especially-interesting alien species; the mainstream will take no notice, but adventurous auds are in for a strange and imaginative trip. Primer fans and hardcore art-film devotees will likely be the sole takers for this long-anticipated sophomore effort, which again finds Carruth taking on writing, directing, acting, producing, scoring, lensing and editing duties. He’s even serving as his own distributor this time, with plans to release the picture in L.A. and Gotham in April, followed by a quick transition to repeat-viewing-friendly smallscreen play. At the center of Upstream Color is a young woman, Kris ( Amy Seimetz ), who finds herself an unwitting participant in some exceedingly bizarre experiments. First a thief (Thiago Martins) attacks her and forces her to ingest a bio-engineered worm that brainwashes her into handing over her savings. When the critter starts to replicate inside her body, in scenes that give the picture a brief horror-movie spin, she’s rescued, after a fashion, by an older gentleman identified in the credits as Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who subjects her to a bizarre respiratory treatment involving one of his many farm pigs. Left with little to no memory of what has happened, Kris finds herself drawn to a young man ( Carruth ) who seems to have experienced the same ordeal. The two walk and talk, ride the subway, make love and at one point cradle each other in a bathtub. They wander a nondescript-looking city, exchanging dialogue laced with random repetition and impenetrable non sequiturs. Even as their actions and circumstances defy comprehension, a troubling and poignant idea rises to the surface: the universal human compulsion to construct a sense of identity and ascribe meaning to one’s life, to impose order on disorder. The futility of such a thing may well explain the befuddling, pretzel-like contours of the story; even the most attentive viewers may be hard-pressed to comprehend the significance of the women harvesting orchids, or why Sampler walks around using sound-recording equipment. Peculiar as it all may sound in outline, it’s even stranger to experience onscreen, arranged by Carruth in a complex symphonic framework that variously invokes Malick and Lynch in its narrative illogic, tactile lyricism and possible transmigration-of-souls subtext. The picture is so densely edited (by Carruth and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints helmer David Lowery) that no single shot seems to last more than mere seconds, which combines with the shallow-focus compositions to produce an experience of near-continual disorientation. Factor in the almost omnipresent synth score, layered under tinkling piano chords, and the film seems to be attempting to induce a state of synaesthesia. Walden , a frequent reference point here, provides a clue as to what Carruth is up to: In its intense levels of visual-aural stimulation, the film is at once transcendent and meditative, and in some ways a call for the sort of inner detox Thoreau prescribed. And since exalted literary works seem to be on the interpretive agenda, the transference of illness to a herd of pigs calls to mind nothing so much as the gospel accounts of Jesus casting out Legion by the Sea of Galilee. Pretentious or sublime, these ineffable spiritual overtones are finally what make Upstream Color so approachable, for all its mysteries: This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than Primer , not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same. One can only imagine what directions the actors were given in order to inhabit roles that seem to splinter and reassemble themselves at will, but Seimetz supplies a quietly haunting presence, particularly in the film’s tender closing fade. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Aspiring awards-show hosts, do I have a training video for you. Here, in one sweet video-clip compilation, is a highlight reel of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s pitch-perfect performance at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. Included are Poehler’s lines about the “beautiful people of film rubbing shoulders with the rat-faced people of television,” Les Miserables actress Anne Hathaway not being cut out for porn, and Fey’s warning to singer/songwriter Taylor Swift to “stay away from Michael J. Fox’s son,” Sam. This nicely edited clip, which was posted by The Guardian in the U.K., also features audience reaction to the jokes. You get to see Jessica Chastain’s gasp after Poehler does the joke about Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow understanding torture because of her three-year marriage to James Cameron. And Daniel Day-Lewis plays along by extending his index finger when Poehler and Fey tell the audience that the method actor actually worked for Steven Spielberg before Lincoln when he played E.T. There’s even a bonus shot of Tommy Lee Jones scowling, which makes this video a must-have for any awards-show aficionado’s collection. My only regret is that the video doesn’t include the shot of Poehler cuddling with George Clooney . Check it out below, but put down the coffee cup first or you’ll be doing a spit take like Quentin Tarantino . RELATED: Do The Tommy Lee Jones! 5 Top Golden Globe Moments WATCH: Jodie Foster Wins The Golden Globes With Her ‘Coming Out’ Speech [ The Guardian ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
With all the fancy ‘staches and old-school automobiles, this second trailer for Ariel Vroman’s The Iceman reminds me of The Beastie Boys ‘ “Sabotage” video, with a lot of cold-blooded killing substituted for 1970s TV crime drama parody. Grim-faced Michael Shannon plays Richard Kuklinski, the real-life contract killer who offed more than 1964 and 1986, Winona Ryder plays his wife and Chris Evans — whose hair alone makes this trailer worth watching — is one of his partners in crime. Ray Liotta also does his usually masterful job of scaring the crap out of me, and James Franco , whose RabbitBandini Productions is credited as executive producer of the film, can be seen cowering near the end of the clip. For reference, here’s “Sabotage.” Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Writer-director Jeff Nichols returns with the Arkansas-set drama Mud , which vied for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and sweeps through the Sundance Film Festival this week with stars Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon in tow. Watch the film’s first trailer — which does indeed feature a shirtless McConaughey, along with simmering Southern-fried intrigue and a palpable sense of menace — and stay tuned for more updates from Park City. Synopsis: MUD is an adventure about two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who find a man named Mud (Matthew McConnaughey) hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios—he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isn’t long until Mud’s visions come true and their small town is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow. Mud hits theaters April 26, 2013 and also stars Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland. [via Yahoo ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Jennifer Lawrence hasn’t had many opportunities to show off her comedic chops onscreen — she only burst onto the scene three years ago in Winter’s Bone , then quickly filled up her dance card with action blockbusters like X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games before taking on the awards season contender Silver Linings Playbook — but the Best Actress front-runner has been delighting awards-watchers left and right on the Oscar circuit these past few months. The girl is funny — sardonic, whip-smart, witty, self-deprecating, and she knows what’s what as she plays the Hollywood game, which is why her post-Golden Globes hosting gig on Saturday Night Live will be one to watch. The promo bits are hit and miss — spoofing awards season with Jason Sudeikis, Lawrence at least nails the giddy awkwardness of getting up on that podium only to be played off by the orchestra, amirite Daniel Day-Lewis ? — but it’s promising enough just to see her mugging for the laughs. Here’s hoping once that Silver Linings Oscar is on her mantle she’ll tackle some comedies. Actual real comedies that grown-ups might want to watch! Now there’s an idea. The SNL gig also cements Lawrence as the popular favorite in her race, although I’d totally watch Emmanuelle Riva and Quvenzhané Wallis tag-team an SNL co-hosting gig. Think bigger next time, guys. [via NBC ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell are among the initial selections unveiled Wednesday for the 2013 New Directors/New Films series. Both films are playing at the Sundance Film Festival which begins Thursday. The seven announced today hail from seven countries. The series, hosted by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, mostly features “discovery of new works by emerging and dynamic filmmaking talent” has served as a launch pad for many acclaimed filmmakers worldwide, including the likes of Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Ken Burns, Agnieszka Holland, Wong Kar Wai, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg, though some are more “emerging” than others. Among this year’s other announced titles are Emil Christov’s The Color of the Chameleon (Bulgaria), Tobias Lindholm’s A Hijacking (Kapringen) (Denmark), Rachid Djaidani’s Hold Back (Rengaine) (France), JP Sniadecki’s and Libbie Dina Cohn’s People’s Park (USA/China) and Matías Piñeiro’s VIOLA (Argentina). “These first seven titles give a hint at the exciting versatility and accomplishment in storytelling by emerging directors this year,” said lead MoMA film curator Rajendra Roy in a statement. “The New Directors class of 2013 promises to have some wonderful surprises in store for our film audiences and cineastes around the world.” FSLC Director of Year Round programming, Robert Koehler added, “Even with the vast majority of films still to be selected, these first selections for ND/NF set the tone for the introduction of a wide range of cinema and cinematic voices – both narrative and documentary – that has been the ambition of New Directors/New Films.” In related Film Society news, three Oscar-nominated documentaries will have a one-week run at the Elinor Brunin Munroe Film Center beginning this weekend, including The Invisible War , How To Survive a Plague and 5 Broken Cameras . The 42nd ND/NF takes place March 20 – 31 in New York. The seven official selections include: The Color of the Chameleon (2012) 114min, Director: Emil Christov Country: Bulgaria Unfolding in the years immediately before and after the fall of communism, this blackly comic, implacably deadpan, all but unclassifiable puzzler delves into the manipulation and intimidation that underwrites the transactions between the secret police and their informants, going down a rabbit hole into a realm of twisted absurdity. The scenario by Vladislav Todorov, adapting his 2010 novel, Zincograph, centers on misfit youth turned engraving plant employee Batko Stamenov (codename: Marzipan), who is recruited by the secret police to infiltrate…a book reading group. Shades of Borges, the book being studied is “a subversive pseudo-philosophical novel” by the name of Zincograph about… an engraver who creates his own secret off-books network of informants. Going rogue after being dropped for his strange ideas, Batko targets another group, the so-called Club For New Thinking, invents a fictitious branch of the Ministry of Information known as ‘Department Sex’ and hatches a scheme that, as Todorov puts it, exposes the “very nature of secret policing under communism.” With this, its first film to appear in ND/NF in 35 years, Bulgaria is back! A Hijacking (Kapringen) (2012) 99min, Director: Tobias Lindholm Country: Denmark On its way to harbor, the cargo ship MV Rozen is boarded and seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean. Moving between the claustrophobic and intensely fraught day-to-day life of the crew and their captors and the physically removed negotiations by the freight company in Denmark, Lindholm creates a climate of almost unbearable tension with an unexpected climax. As in his previous work (the prison drama ‘R’ and the television series ‘Borgen’) Lindholm’s narrative is based on a true event and his use of actual locations—the film was shot under exceedingly difficult circumstances in the Indian Ocean– and people who has been involved in similar situations (the negotiation team include a real-life hostage negotiator), provide the film with palpable authenticity and a lived-in feel. Augmented by a terrific cast, especially the amazing Pilou Asbæk as the ship’s cook Mikkel who becomes the pirates primary conduit for communication, Lindholm has created a suspenseful drama whose essential subject matter is the innate danger of an overwhelming disparity between impoverished nations and the developed world. A HIJACKING is a Magnolia Films release. Hold Back (Rengaine) (2012) 75min, Director: Rachid Djaïdani Country: France The French title translates as “refrain,” and musical repetition is what this no-budget urban contemporary Romeo and Juliet embodies: in this case of the eternal conflict between true love and tribal loyalties, as real in 21st-century Paris as it was in the age of Shakespeare. The film’s two basic conditions are immediately established: Sabrina (Sabrina Hamida) accepts the marriage proposal of struggling actor Dorcy (Stéphane Soo Mongo) and then she and her eldest brother Slimane (Slimane Dazi) count off the names of the 40 “brothers” in her extended family clan. Dorcy is a black Christian and Sabrina is a Muslim Arab: de facto patriarch Slimane will enlist his brothers in an all-out effort to do whatever it takes to track down Dorcy and prevent this “taboo” union. Made on the run in the streets (“I film like a boxer” says director Rachid Djaïdani), this film is part love letter to the irresistible energy and creative street life of Paris, and part call for interracial tolerance. People’s Park (2012) 78min, Directors: JP Sniadecki and Libbie Dina Cohn Countries: USA/China An immersive, inquisitive visit to the People’s Park in Chengdu, China created with a single virtuouso tracking shot. The joys of communal play, exercise and leisure time come under intense scrutiny through the relentless gaze of the directors’ lens, and create alternating states of unease and exhilaration. Stories We Tell (2012) 108min, Director: Sarah Polley Country: Canada What is real? What is true? What do we remember, and how do we remember it? Actor/director Sarah Polley ( Away From Her , Take This Waltz ) turns from fiction to non-fiction and in the process cracks open family secrets in this powerful examination of personal history and remembrance. Using home movies, still photographs and interviews, Polley delves into the life of her mother, shown as a creative yet secretive woman. What parents and siblings have to say and what they remember about events that occurred years ago, show the pitfalls of making the past present and cast a sharp light on the complicated paths of relationships. But while she is talking to her own relatives, Polley’s interest lies in the bigger picture of what families hold onto as truth. In an intimate setting, she shows us the process by which she tries to pluck information from family and friends: she interviews them but also delicately interrogates them as well as bringing them in as writers and collaborators in her own story. More than documentary, Stories We Tell is a delicately crafted personal essay about memory, loss and understanding. Upstream Color (2013), Director: Shane Carruth Country: USA Ever since he created a wave of excitement with his 2004 debut, Primer , filmmaker of all trades Shane Carruth has prompted curiosity over what he would come up with next. For certain, it would likely contain a strain of science fact tilting into science fiction; almost probably, whatever would happen would happen in a reasonably recognizable America of the near-present moment, populated with a combination of confused and brilliant citizens of the Republic stumbling through as best they could toward something terrifyingly brilliant. Upstream Color certainly checks all those boxes, but it can’t be overstated how starkly different and markedly advanced a work this is over the first one. It represents something new in American cinema, close cousin to Alain Resnais’ great films thematically and formally exploring the surprising jumps and shocks of life’s passages and science’s strange effects. A love story embedded in a horrifying kidnap plot whose full import isn’t revealed until the final, poignant moments, Upstream Color doesn’t so much move as leap with great audacity through its moments and across sequences, a cinematic simulacrum of the ways we think back on our own lives, astonished at, as in the title of Grace Paley’s fiction collection, our “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.” Viola (2012) 65min, Director: Matías Piñeiro Country: Argentina Matías Piñeiro is one of contemporary Argentine cinema’s most sensuous and sophisticated new voices. In his latest film, Viola , he ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Mixing melodrama with sentimental comedy, philosophical conundrum with matters of the heart, Viola bears all the signature traits of a Piñeiro film: serpentine camera movements and slippages of language, an elliptical narrative and a playful confusion of reality and artifice. Viola is a Cinema Guild release.
The Sundance Film Festival completed its 2013 roster with 65 short films announced Tuesday. Veteran filmmakers Albert Maysles and Morgan Spurlock are among the filmmakers that will screen their latest in shorts programs or before features at the celebrated event. The list includes titles that will screen in the U.S. and International Narrative, Documentary, Animated and New Frontier short films. [ Related: Sundance’s U.S. and World Competition Films & NEXT Lineup ] Sundance received 8,104 shorts submissions, 427 more than 2012 vs 4,044 feature-length submissions. “The Short Film section of our 2013 Festival is comprised of bold works by adventurous filmmakers who have mastered creative ways to embody their unique perspectives in the short form onscreen,” said Sundance Director of Programming Trevor Groth in a statement. “The selections represent the immensely varied and dynamic approaches to storytelling that will inspire audiences with their huge accomplishments within a limited timeframe.” [ Related: Sundance’s 2013 Premieres and Documentary Premieres lineup ] Sundance Film Festival Shorts lineup follows with information provided by the event: U.S. NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS The Apocalypse / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Zuchero) — Four uninspired friends try to come up with a terrific idea for how to spend their Saturday afternoon. Black Metal / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kat Candler) — After a career spent mining his music from the shadows, one fan creates a chain reaction for the lead singer of a black metal band. Boneshaker / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Frances Bodomo) — An African family lost in America travels to a Louisiana church to find a cure for its problem child. Broken Night / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Guillermo Arriaga) — A young woman and her four-year-old daughter drive across desolated hills. Everything looks fine and they seem to enjoy the ride, until an accident sends them into the nightmare of darkness. The Captain / Australia, U.S.A. (Directors: Nash Edgerton, Spencer Susser, Screenwriters: Nash Edgerton, Spencer Susser, Taika Waititi) — A man wakes up with a hangover, only to discover the consequences of his actions. The Cub / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Riley Stearns) — Wolves make the best parents. GUN / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Spencer Gillis) — Roy purchases a handgun to protect his wife and newborn baby after a terrifying home invasion. The newfound sense of power Roy feels carrying the weapon becomes an obsession, leading him down a reckless path that may have tragic consequences. Karaoke! / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Andrew F. Renzi) — On a night out in New York City, a young man tries to avoid his problems. K.I.T. / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Michelle Morgan) — A guilt-ridden, but well-intentioned, yuppie goes to great lengths to prove she is a decent person. Movies Made From Home # 6 / U.S.A. (Director: Robert Machoian) — Debbie is good at playing hide and seek – so good she is often hard to find. Movies Made From Home # 15 / U.S.A. (Director: Robert Machoian) — Robert attempts to keep himself healthy and fit so he can live as long as possible, unaware of what that really means. Palimpsest / U.S.A. (Director: Michael Tyburski, Screenwriters: Michael Tyburski, Ben Nabors) — A successful house tuner provides clients with a unique form of therapy that examines subtle details in their living spaces. #PostModem / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva) — A comedic, satirical, sci-fi pop musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists, #PostModem is the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets. Record/Play / U.S.A. (Director: Jesse Atlas, Screenwriters: Aaron Wolfe, Jesse Atlas) — War, fate, and a broken Walkman transcend time and space in this sci-fi love story. Skin / U.S.A. (Director: Jordana Spiro, Screenwriters: Jordana Spiro, David Pablos) — A young taxidermist and small town loner is entranced by a girl who finds his work beautiful. Just as their relationship begins to progress, he does something that drastically changes everything. Social Butterfly / France, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Lauren Wolkstein) — When a 30-year-old American woman attends a teenage party in the south of France, guests wonder who she is and what she is doing there. What Do We Have in Our Pockets? / Israel, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Goran Dukic) — A most unusual love story unravels when the objects in a young man’s pockets come to life. Based on a short story by Etgar Keret. Whiplash / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Damien Chazelle) — An aspiring drummer enters an elite conservatory’s top jazz orchestra. [ Related: Sundance 2013’s Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and New Frontiers lineups ] INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS The Companion / Peru (Director and screenwriter: Alvaro Delgado-Aparicio) — On the outskirts of Lima, a young prostitute tends to his father, a fallen-from-grace artisan. However, the young man feels that his efforts are never enough. He tries to break free, but his father’s dependence is stronger than his son’s will. The Curse / United Kingdom (Director and screenwriter: Fyzal Boulifa) — Fatine has ventured far from the village to meet her older lover. When a small boy catches her, all she wants to do is go home. The Date / Finland (Director and screenwriter: Jenni Toivoniemi) — Tino’s manhood is put to the test in front of two women when he has to host a date for Diablo, the family’s stud cat. Le Futur Proche / Canada (Director: Sophie Goyette, Screenwriters: Sophie Goyette, Madeleine David) — A French immigrant pilot receives an unexpected phone call that changes his life forever. He must deal with the emotional consequences of the call while still completing his work duties in this impressionistic depiction of an all-but-ordinary day. Jonah / Tanzania, United Kingdom (Director: Kibwe Tavares, Screenwriter: Jack Thorne) — When two young men photograph a gigantic fish leaping from the sea, their small town becomes a tourist attraction in this story about the old and the new. Magnesium / Netherlands (Director: Sam de Jong, Screenwriter: Shady El-Hamus) — A talented gymnast makes a life-changing discovery as she prepares for an important tournament, which is her last chance to reach the top. Night Shift / New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: Zia Mandviwalla) — Salote, an airport cleaner, starts another long night shift. She keeps her head down, does her job, and gleans the means for her survival from what others leave behind. On Suffocation / Sweden (Director and screenwriter: Jenifer Malmqvist) — This dialogue-free film about an execution describes what happens when the system becomes more important than human life. Scrubber / United Kingdom (Director and screenwriter: Romola Garai) — A mysterious and disturbing suburban narrative about a listless young mother who is torn between family duty and self-serving fantasies. The Song of the Mechanical Fish / Russian Federation (Director and screenwriter: Philipp Yuryev) — A fisherman who lives in a deserted village in the far north receives an invitation to the wedding of a son he has never seen and decides to make a redemptive journey. Summer Vacation / Israel (Directors: Sharon Maymon, Tal Granit, Screenwriters: Tal Granit, Sharon Maymon) — The family summer vacation: sea, sun and sand, and all Yuval wants is to get the heck out of there. Today and Tomorrow / Netherlands (Director: Aaron Douglas Johnston, Screenwriter: Jesse van’t Hull) — Iranian and Afghani political refugees make a life for themselves in Holland as they anxiously await word if they will be granted political asylum or sent back to their native countries. Volume / United Kingdom (Director: Mahalia Belo, Screenwriter: Ingeborg Topsøe) — Sam’s perfectly polished world is upended when Georgina goes missing. As everyone acts like nothing has happened, Sam drifts back into his memories of Georgina and realizes he may know more than he wants to remember. You Are More Than Beautiful / China, Hong Kong (Director: Tae-yong Kim) — A man arrives in beautiful Jeju Island and pays a woman to act as his partner while he visits his ill father in this tale of beauty among base human acts. [Related Interview: Sundance Director John Cooper Says ‘Fearlessness’ Distinguishes The Festival’s 2013 Slate ] DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS 30% (Women and Politics in Sierra Leone) / United Kingdom, Sierra Leone (Director: Anna Cady) — Oil-painted animation brings to life the stories of three powerful women in postconflict Sierra Leone, revealing the violence and corruption women face as they fight for fairer representation in the governance of their country. The Battle of amfAR / U.S.A. (Directors: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Screenwriter: Sharon Wood) — When AIDS strikes, two very different women – Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor and research scientist Dr. Mathilde Krim – join forces to create America’s first AIDS research foundation. The fight against HIV/AIDS has never been the same. Catnip: Egress to Oblivion? / U.S.A.(Director: Jason Willis) — Catnip is all the rage with today’s modern feline, but do we really understand it? This film frankly discusses the facts about this controversial substance. Endless Day / Germany (Director: Anna Frances Ewert) — For most people, sleep comes naturally, but for others, the night turns into an ongoing struggle to drift off into oblivion. This film explores what it’s like to be awake involuntarily and the feelings that accompany the passing of sleepless time. Fall to Grace / U.S.A. (Director: Alexandra Pelosi) — Former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey famously resigned from office after declaring himself “a gay American.” Since then, he has continued to use his connections to help rehabilitate women and to make peace with his journey from married governor to gay suburban priest. Irish Folk Furniture / Ireland (Director: Tony Donoghue) — In Ireland, old hand-painted furniture is often associated with hard times, with poverty, and with a time many would rather forget. In this animated documentary, 16 pieces of traditional folk furniture are repaired and returned home. Outlawed in Pakistan / Pakistan, U.S.A. (Directors: Habiba Nosheen, Hilke Schellmann) — Kainat Soomro, a Pakistani teenager, accuses four men from her village of gang-raping her. She takes her case to the Pakistani courts and faces a deeply flawed criminal-justice system. Paraíso / U.S.A. (Director: Nadav Kurtz) — Three immigrant window cleaners risk their lives every day rappelling down some of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers. Paraíso reveals the danger of their job and what they see on the way down. The Roper / U.S.A. (Director: Ewan McNicol) — A black man with hip-hop and zydeco roots hard grafts through the local, all-white rodeo circuits in the Deep South, as he dreams of competing in the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. The Secret of Trees / U.S.A. (Director: Albert Maysles) — What do trees know that we don’t? Thirteen-year-old inventor Aidan has discovered that trees use a mathematical formula to gather sunlight in crowded forests. Now he wonders why we don’t collect solar energy in the same way. Skinningrove / U.S.A. (Director: Michael Almereyda) — Photographer Chris Killip shares unpublished images chronicling time spent among the fiercely independent residents of a remote English fishing village. A Story for the Modlins / Spain (Director: Sergio Oksman, Screenwriter: Sergio Oksman) —The tale of Elmer Modlin, who, after appearing in Rosemary’s Baby, fled with his family to a far-off country and shut himself away in a dark apartment for 30 years. When the Zombies Come / U.S.A. (Director: Jon Hurst) — At a remote hardware store, fans of the walking dead have turned their love of zombies into an obsession, warping the way they see the store and its customers. The Whistle / Poland (Director: Grzegorz Zariczny) — Marcin, a lowest-leagues football referee who lives in a small town near Krakow, dreams of better times. At his mother’s urging, he decides to change his life and find himself a girlfriend and a better job. You Don’t Know Jack / U.S.A. (Director: Morgan Spurlock) — Jack Andraka, a high school sophomore, has developed a revolutionary new test for pancreatic cancer, proving the future of science is in the hands of our youth. ANIMATED SHORT FILMS Benjamin’s Flowers / Sweden (Director and screenwriter: Malin Erixon) — Lovelorn and lonely Benjamin lives on the blurry borderline between fantasy and reality. Bite of the Tail / South Korea, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Song E Kim) — Life is a constant struggle for a husband and wife. She is suffering from stomach pain, and the doctor has no clue about a cure. Meanwhile, her husband is on his own journey of hunting a snake. The Event / U.S.A., United Kingdom (Director: Julia Pott, Screenwriter: Tom Chivers) — Love and a severed foot at the end of the world. Feral / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Daniel Sousa) — A solitary hunter finds a wild boy in the woods and brings him back to civilization. Alienated by his strange new environment, the boy tries to adapt by using the same strategies that kept him safe in the forest. In Hanford / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Chris Mars) — This heartbreaking true story of a town poisoned by Cold War–era nuclear-arms manufacture is told through firsthand accounts and fantasy scenes, which empathize with the victim’s plight. Marcel, King of Tervuren / U.S.A. (Director: Tom Schroeder, Screenwriter: Ann Berckmoes) — In this Greek tragedy – as acted out by Belgian roosters – Marcel survives the bird flu, alcohol, sleeping pills and his son, Max. Oh Willy… / Belgium, France, Netherlands (Directors and screenwriters: Marc James Roels, Emma De Swaef) — Willy returns to his naturalist roots as he bungles his way into noble savagery. Seraph / U.S.A. (Director: Dash Shaw, Screenwriters: John Cameron Mitchell, Dash Shaw) — A boy’s childhood scars his life. Thank You / U.S.A. (Directors: Pendleton Ward, Tom Herpich, Screenwriters: Pendleton Ward, Tom Herpich) — A pack of fire wolves attack a snow golem in the forest and accidentally leave a cub behind after their retreat. The golem’s life is thrown into chaos as he attempts to reunite the cub with its family. Tram / France, Czech Republic (Director and screenwriter: Michaela Pavlátová) — The humdrum daily routine of a tram conductress is jolted when the vibrations and rhythm of the road turn her on and take her on an erotic and surrealistic fantasy journey. NEW FRONTIER SHORT FILMS An electrifying celebration of innovation in filmmaking, these New Frontier shorts energize the mind through bold aesthetics and thought-provoking content. The Capsule / Greece (Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari, Screenwriters: Athina Rachel Tsangari, Aleksandra Waliszewska) — Seven young women. A mansion perched on a Cycladic rock. A series of lessons on discipline, desire, discovery, and disappearance. A melancholy, inescapable cycle on the brink of womanhood – infinitely. Century / U.S.A. (Director: Kevin Jerome Everson) — Filmed in Charlottesville, Virginia, and starring a General Motors automobile – the titular brown Buick Century – meeting its fate. Datamosh / U.S.A. (Director: Yung Jake) — A contemporary rap video that explores the glitchy video art trend “datamoshing”. All geeked up, Yung Jake glitches out your computer and celebrates nerdiness and getting money. Iyeza / South Africa (Director and screenwriter: Kudzanai Chiurai) — An allegory of the Last Supper depicting the establishment of a new nation-state, Kudzanai Chiurai’s Iyeza explores the African condition by juxtaposing the past and the present of a continent in the grip of violent civil wars. Primate Cinema: Apes As Family / Scotland, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rachel Mayeri) — Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, like to watch television. What would a film made expressly for chimps look like? Created with a primatologist and actors in chimp suits, a primate drama is presented to chimpanzees at the Edinburgh Zoo. Reindeer / United Kingdom (Director: Eva Weber) — A lyrical and haunting portrait of reindeer herding in the twilight expanses of the Lapland wilderness. Sirocco / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Hisham Bizri) — A detective is sent to the desert to investigate a murder only to find out he’s been investigating his own death. Until the Quiet Comes / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kahlil Joseph) — Shot in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles, this film deals with themes of violence, camaraderie and spirituality through the lens of magical realism.
