72 films from 29 countries (out of 14,200 entries), with nearly half directed by women, makes up this year's largely virtual Sundance Film Festival 2021 that runs 28 January to 3 February 2021. 50 Shorts, 4 Indie Series, 14 New Frontier Projects to Debut on Feature-Rich Digital Platform & Satellite Screens Nationwide complement this year's edition, for which you won't have to pack your skis.
Ronny Trocker's German-Italian-Danish feature HUMAN FACTORS (DER MENSCHLICHE FAKTOR), developed through the Torino Film Lab, is part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
The film follows Jan, Nina and their two kids, a cosmopolitan, middle-class family. Nina and Jan, played by Sabine Timoteo (THE COLLINI CASE) and Mark Waschke (DARK; A HIDDEN LIFE), have successful careers as account executives at their advertising company, but when Jan accepts to work on the campaign of a political party, Nina’s exclusion from the decision-making leads to doubt and mistrust. When they decide to spend a family weekend at their house in a coastal holiday resort, a mysterious home invasion sets everything off balance. While they try to put the incident into perspective, the agitation triggered by the disruption shakes the family to the core. The film already has an international sales deal before its January 29 world premiere, promising "narrative loops and shifting lenses.
Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Competition includes TAMING THE GARDEN by Salomé Jashi (
Meet the Artist). A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia’s coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings. And in order to transplant a tree of such dimensions some other trees are chopped down, electric cables are shifted and new roads are paved through mandarin plantations.
In the Short Films Program, I am excited about BAMBIRAK by Zamarin Wahdat (USA/DE). When Kati stows away in her father's truck, Faruk must juggle his responsibilities as a single dad while holding down his first job in a new country. As their relationship deepens, a brush with covert racism tests their bond. Born in Afghanistan and raised in Germany, Wahdat attended New York University's graduate film program as a Dean's fellow. Her work as a cinematographer premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival, and she contributed camera work on the Academy Award–winning LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WAR ZONE (IF YOU'RE A GIRL). Wahdat was selected for the American Society of Cinematographers’ Vision Mentorship Program. (>
Meet the Artist)
Two more co-productions made it into the Shorts Program:
DON’T GO TELLIN‘ YOUR MOMMA by Topaz Jones, rubberband (USA/DE/FR/IT)
WHEN WE WERE BULLIES by Jay Rosenblatt (USA/DE)
Plus WOULD YOU RATHER (WÜRDEST DU EHER) by Lise Akoka, Romane Guéret (FR/DE) in the Indie Series Program.
image: HUMAN FACTORS courtesy Zischlermann Filmproduktion
