Robot and Frank

Directed by Jack Schreier

Screenplay by Christopher D. Ford

2012, USA

Director Jake Schreier’s Robot and Frank is a tale set sometime in the near future when robots will be at our beck and call for menial tasks or even to watch over the elderly as they become no longer fit to be on their own. Frank Langella (seasoned thespian and recently seen in The Box and Starting Out in the Evening) plays a man unable to let go of his glory years as a suave cat burglar. In and out of prison for most of his life, he was an absent father focused on short term gains from jewelry heists. Now his children (James Marsden, Liv Tyler) are grown and have become independent people with legitimate careers that carry them away from their estranged father. Deteriorating from old age, Frank’s isolating situation threatens to depress him into an early grave. The passive aggressive gift of a caretaker robot from his son inadvertently invigorates his sense of purpose and manages to reopen avenues of illegal opportunity for the veteran thief.

It might be easy to see this indie as overly quirky or even sickeningly cute if it weren’t for the fact that this film very bluntly repeats that the robot is just a robot, nothing more. While it can be taught, it cannot feel. Robot and Frank is saddest and most moving when the audience stops projecting onto the robot the human qualities that we want to believe it has. That Frank is merely interacting with command based circuitry and talking in circles to himself lends the story a poignant and lonely edge. Not initially trusting or wanting a machine, Frank eventually takes a shine to the robot when he finds out that he can teach it how to pick a lock and case a joint. As the capers get more increasingly exciting, it is disconcerting but amusing that Frank has a better rapport with this robot then any human he knows. There are authentic laughs as the robot seems to be the perfect partner in crime for Frank and attune to his needs for companionship. Then again, there is the realization that having learned how to burgle from him while being reliant on his commands, the robot is fundamentally Frank- only clearer in mind and indestructible in form. The film’s main fault may be that the music soars triumphantly when Frank makes narrow escapes from the cops with the help of the robot. This misdirects the audience into thinking that Frank is friends with someone other than himself.

Langella makes sure that his character is never all the way sympathetic or relatable. He is a borderline contemptible man who doesn’t get along with others and to whom the a family has never held anything worth sticking around for. The little affection he shows to his children and a love interest (Susan Sarandon) are with presents that he has lifted. Peter Sarsgaard’s robot voice is uniform in intonation and quick to soothe the often agitated Frank with a calm tempo of response. Everything cannot be magically healed by Frank’s alliance with the robot. It will not solve loneliness or fill the emptiness in his heart that he has always tried to solve with cheap thrills.

Unlike most other films about the potential of technology in the future, this robot is meant to help and has no ill design on overthrowing authority. Here it is the human that leads the machine astray. We go with the robot into a personal hell that Frank is only faintly aware of himself- where he relives his past and the outcome stays the same. The revolutionary idea of living for someone beyond himself is occurring almost too late in his life to make any kind of impact on those who might have been able to love him. Looking at machines as tools that can extend our personalities and improve functionality, we can appreciate through Frank that there is hardly any modern fulfillment to gain by way of electronics if we are unwilling to honestly stand in judgement of ourselves and share our emotional lives with one another. Robot and Frank is something rare in that asks for us to examine our personal use of machines as direct reflections of who we are. They are platforms from which we command, write and talk into an abyss of electronic space to spread the importance of our thoughts but often they’re just somewhere we end up retreating into ourselves. We can’t hesitate to make real world connections or else we may end up like Frank, whose best and only friend is a mechanical version of himself.

- Lane Scarberry

Visit the Sundance website

Sundance is wrapping up once again this year and as with every year, quite a few films are generating quite the buzz. Among them is The House I Live In, The Law in These Parts and Violeta Went to Heaven who all earned Jury Prizes. The Sundance awards (while I rarely agree with the choices) are always interesting to follow each year, since the winners are sometimes entirely unexpected. This year there’s no surprise that the most talked about film – Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, took home the top prize.

Here is the full list of winners from the press release, including the five Audience Award winners.

Red Hook Summer
Written by Spike Lee
Directed by Spike Lee
USA, 2012

Spike Lee’s latest film might ask daring questions about community responsibility and black manhood, but these themes are not at all cohesively tied together. Red Hook Summer revolves around a privileged young boy’s summertime visit to his grandfather’s poor neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Flik, who is already feeling rejected by his mother for being sent off is now cooped up with a preacher grandfather who confronts almost everything he does as inherently lazy or not worthwhile. Flik’s dad has been killed in Afghanistan so he has not had a positive male role model in his life for quite some time. The preacher is a fixture in Red Hook and while not universally respected, is revered by many of the devout. As Flik learns to trust him, so does the audience. The problem here is that for most of the story we are led to believe that how Flik is growing up and who he should look up to are of primary importance as to where Lee is taking us.

The character of the preacher is righteous and deals out condemnation severely but fairly. On the sidelines are the colorful characters of the neighborhood, poor but soulful people that Flik has been missing out on in the suburbs. They teach him lessons about how truly rough life can be but also how good friends can make it better. While it is true that he comes from a life of luxury (carrying around an iPad 2 everywhere), Flik has a wild soul. He runs around with a girl with an asthma problem and together they write in wet cement and steal bags of potato chips from the church pantry. The child actors deliver lines with spunk, so it’s a shame that oftentimes their acting seems stilted. The rest of the actors have lines that flow or stutter but never miss a beat. Conversations feel as if they are organic and everyone stumbles from one topic to another, always with a hint of faith in the all powerful or a bitter lack thereof.

Lee doesn’t want people to think that this is in any way a sequel to Do the Right Thing (although his character Mookie makes numerous appearances here) but it is still a movie that – like Right Thing - fundamentally speaks to what brings a community together and what can tear it apart. Red Hook starts out quite honestly touching upon the need for positive black male mentors but then sabotages itself with a detour into another film entirely.The audience remains captivated with Flik and his run-ins about the neighborhood until there is a sharp curve in the plot. From that point on it is hard to tell what Lee is trying to say about what exactly the neighborhood needs, the nature of redemption and what can be forgiven. Are there some things that are unforgivable or beyond putting firmly in one’s past? Rainbows literally appear at the very end of the story as if Lee has dismissed the abrupt revelations and everything disturbing can be put to rest without further discussion. Lee loves tackling controversial subject matter but basically derails and ends Flik’s summer of learning with a enormous question mark. We know that Flik has had life changing experiences but we hear no judgement from him about the last set of events. For Flik and the audience the issue brought up is serious enough that it creates a wound that warrants decoding, making sure we know what Flik feels about this and what his community will go on to do. Instead of healing us, Lee leaves us speechless and with an open wound.

“Who are young boys to look up to if even their trusted neighborhood protectors and defenders of?”

- Mookie from Do the Right Thing 

Lane Scarberry

Visit the Sundance website

The End Of Love

Directed by Mark Webber

Written by Mark Webber

2012, USA

In The End of Love director and actor Mark Webber creates a reality steeped in grief. At the center of the story is Mark (played by Webber) who has become a full time dad in the face of his girlfriend’s untimely death. His love and affection for his son, played by Webber’s real life toddler feels genuine. This is a film that is improvised but has the feel of a written script in that the dialogue is often very compact, funny and poignant. Perhaps there isn’t anything that could be written for a child of this age that wouldn’t feel forced or counterfeit. Webber and son’s back and force wavers between love and frustration. The character has no one to share this burden or joy with.

It’s the desperation that stems out of this that nearly causes a breakdown every time he tries to intimately encounter women. In a local woman (Jocelin Donahue) who runs an indoor playground for small children, he finds a friend but is obviously looking rather intensely at her as a potential new partner and mother for his son. It is captivating, refreshing and at the same time distressing to witness this man’s want for immediate connection and commitment. His is in over his head so deeply that the overall atmosphere of the story gives the impression that whatever time he has with other adults as seen with friends and potential lovers, must be lived to the fullest.

As a consequence of devoting so much time to his child, Mark cannot find work as an actor as he once did. The slightest setback (like an exorbitant towing fee) is devastating to his little family’s financial stability. An appearance by Michael Cera (playing himself) throws the audience a little bit out of the story as we go to a party at his luxurious house that overlooks L.A. We see how differently people in the same business can exist and remain ignorant of what is going on in each other’s lives. This is not necessarily a bad detour in the film as it provides more context for Mark (both the real one and the imaginary). Perhaps too having a couple of more famous personalities involved in the process helped market this story that’s built almost solely around the interactions of a dad and his baby. The implication is that amongst such Hollywood wealth and lives still tied to dreams of fame, Mark and his son are on the verge of homelessness. How do people like Mark and his son fall through the cracks? Many people are too embarrased and shamed by their situation to ask for help and many people are too self concerned to give it. The real Mark Webber was apparently homeless when he was a child and so this is an issue very close to the core of who he was, has become and the security he wants for families like his own.

Webber’s acting is subtle at times and nearly explosive near the end of the film. He succeeds in conveying a man whose whole self is tied to fatherhood but lives without a means of giving the real protection and comfort he truly wants to give. The most aching part of this story is that his son, his almost constant companion, does not yet understand the fundamental concept of death. Just beneath the surface there is hope but Webber wants us to understand how good people can end up isolated and on the fringes of society.

Lane Scarberry

Visit the Sundance website

West of Memphis

Directed by Amy Berg

2012, USA

You might think you know the story of the West Memphis Three as it was covered extensively by the press and the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy throughout the last 18 years. Then comes along West of Memphis which brings to the table a closer, more intensely personal reading of the infamous tragedy that devastated so many lives but brought to light how political ambition, pride and ego can so easily corrupt the United States justice system.

Director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) encapsulates and condenses  the length of the case by first presenting the facts which were previously the most widely known about the case. In 1993, three little boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The bodies appeared to be hogtied, tortured and their privates mutilated in what was believed to be a satanic ritual. Three local teenagers who were branded by their community as outsiders were arrested and convicted. It was a closed case that the documentary Paradise Lost cast doubt on. At two and a half hours long the film never feels overly long or rushed It does recap much of the material from Paradise but does so swiftly and deftly.

The doc is obviously biased and sensitive to the would be perpetrators Damien Echols, Jesse Miskelly and Jason Baldwin who instead have become victims. However, it provides ample justification by adding even more evidence that points away from them. Additional interviews from major witnesses who initially testified against the boys apologize for lying and concrete DNA evidence is identified from the crime scene that is definitively not theirs. Shockingly, the basis of why this crime blew up in the media is taken out. The boy’s genitals were most likely missing missing because the creek they were thrown in was crawling with snapping turtles whose bite marks were mistaken as torture. This along with other revelations shake the very foundation of the original case. It would risk being a talking head doc if it weren’t for how impassioned the new investigators, the Three, their loved ones and the network of supporters feel about getting to the truth.

Interest in the case continued on in the media seemingly because of the long list of celebrities that believed that the boys were falsely imprisoned. Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins and director Peter Jackson all number among those who contributed monetarily or publicly spoke on behalf of the incarcerated. Echols was a defiant and rebellious teen who flipped off cameras while on trial. Given the nature of the crime, this behavior was damning at the time and outrageous to people following the case at home. It’s But there was something about him in particular that people continue to connect to. Musician and poet Henry Rollins explains that a weird, Goth kid who wrote down dark thoughts and listened to disturbing music “Could have been me, could have been anyone.” To say that the celebrity support or true crime reporting were what kept the case going would be to seriously belie the actual love that fueled the persistence to pursue the truths that would set them free.

Hearing about how this case touched artists like Rollins is one thing but it is something much more striking to hear from the woman who has loved Echols and worked tirelessly to organize and galvanize protests on his behalf. Lorris Davis is a woman who never stopped believing in Echols innocence. She and Damien corresponded over a long period of time, corresponding by letter hundreds of time before they were married. So lovely is it that they wrote to each other about novels and the nature of time that one almost forgets they could barely see each other- only 3 hours per week. Davis is the rock of this film, her faith in Echols solid and unwavering. Echols is seen here as an eloquent, well read man who waxes philosophical about love and how the nature of time should concentrate on the now.

In direct contradiction to this relationship is the toxic marriage of Pam and Terry Hobbs. Terry reportedly (as seen from interviews, neighbors and family members) regularly beat and even molested his stepchildren. His stepson Stevie was one of the children murdered. The cops never interviewed him. How could someone so close be overlooked? His own family refers to the “Hobbs Family Secret.” The movie delves deep into what might have been the motivations and opportunities Hobbs had at the time of the murders. All investigators, prosecutors and the judge from the first trial hold hold firm to their assertions about what they see as the righteous conviction of all three men. They will not let it go or take the new evidence seriously. It takes a new official to see things anew.

Memphis is in turns about grief, injustice and loyalty but also a moving portrait of three men that despite their past circumstances have not become embittered and stuck on how life has been so unfair. They are moving on even if the case and a community is still firmly entrenched in the past.

Lane Scarberry

Visit the Sundance website

One of the best parts of the Sundance experience is not just the thrill of searching for what I call my Sundance film this year, the gems we make the yearly pilgrimage to these mountains for, but also the search and discovery of the festival’s recurring theme.  This year’s theme is not the most apparent, but judging by the opening weekend films, I’m sensing the program is looking at all that is wrong with humanity and with the times we are living.  It is not at all a flattering view, neither is it a defeated one, but rather more contemplative, and even accepting of our human reality, limitations, and how far we still need to go to improve our inner and outer human condition.  Although many of the films show deeply flawed institutions, it is not the bureaucracies we look at but the people in them.  Sundance 2012 films seem to point at the inevitability of things going seriously wrong wherever you put humans into the mix.  Is our human nature so inherently flawed and our evolution so slow that we must resign to do what we can while we learn who we are and where the cosmic flow is taking us?  We exploit and consume what’s around us and too often live lives that lead to self-destruction, and ultimately emptiness and discontent.  Ten days at Sundance and you can’t help but examine life, the one within and the one around us.  Interpretations of a human reality being told through the magic of film, albeit poetically and always showing us the improbable beauty of the darkest places.

If Sundance comes together as a reflection of the artistic voices of our times, I think these voices are telling us that we are just very bad.  Some seem defeated in a here we are so let’s accept it and move forward kind of way, while others couldn’t be more loud in their relentless pursuit for justice and the now cliché cinematic triumph of the human spirit.  Above all, Sundance celebrates those who rise above our dark reality.

It might be too early to tell, but my first impression that Sundance 2012 wasn’t a program as strong as it is shown in the past 5 year remains.  As I write that, I hear the echo of John Cooper’s voice, Sundance festival’s director, resonate, saying: “Look Again!”  Look Again, this year’s slogan, couldn’t have been more perfect.  After all, Sundance’s program absorbs the mood of the world at large in a given year.  Look again at the way this otherwise familiar story is being told, or look again if you don’t find the wonder you expected in this or that piece of work.  These are new avenues we’re being shown.  Pauses for reflection for 2012.

The festival’s role as a champion for independent cinema and independent artists has made an even stronger commitment to fulfilling its mission this year.  Some of the films in both the US and World Dramatic competition slates are decidedly understated, simple, yet beautiful despite their low prospects for wide audience acceptance or acquisition deals.  Yet, Sundance still gives them a place, and once again both the festival and its parent institute are utopian, free, open, ideal, and full of opportunity for anyone with a voice until you put humans in the mix with swag lounges and parties full of celebrities and we’re back to our inescapable realities.

NEW FRONTIER PROGRAM

One of the highlights of this year is the ever provoking, awe inspiring New Frontier program.  Highlighting work that pushes the boundaries of storytelling and moving image, New Frontier focuses on the convergence of film, art, and new media technologies as a hotbed for cinematic innovation.  An impressively conceived program of media installations, performances, transmedia experiences, panel discussions and feature films, New Frontier feels as a nest where new ideas begin.  It is a prescient look into a future that might never come but is definitely possible.  A precious opportunity to take a look at a side of the human psychic that so often goes unnoticed, New Frontier is a great gift.

OPENING WEEKEND BUZZ

The opening weekend films that are getting the most buzz are Searching for Sugarman, Beasts of the Southern Wild, West of Memphis, and The Queen of Versailles.  It’s not Sundance without controversy and this year it is brought to us courtesy of The Queen of Versailles, a film in the US Documentary competition line up.  Other films like, Compliance, which has 30-50 people walking out of films at screenings due to extreme content, and Excision, who made the decision of handing out a certain female hygiene product at their screening, are also part of the dirty talk.

The films I’ve seen in both the US Dramatic and World Dramatic categories have not been very impressive.  I firmly believe that every film one sees at Sundance has at least some form of artistic merit or special quality, but this year’s films seem to fall short so far.  The dramatic competition seems to be going on those certain roads of the intellectually absurd, impenetrable charm and sublimity that escape me, making it hard to be attracted to or be affected by them.  The World Cinema Documentary competition, in contrast, is shaping up to be the most contested one this year, with films like Five Broken Cameras, Big Boys Gone Bananas!*, Searching for Sugar Man, ½ A Revolution and The Ambassador, all opening to popular and critical acclaim.

It’s only day five of the festival.  I’ll keep searching for that special Sundance 2012 film and writing mostly about the festival’s competition slate.

Arbitrage

Nicholas Jarecki (the brother of documentarians Andrew and Eugene) makes one hell of a directorial debut with a timely suspense thriller about love, loyalty, and high finance. The all-star cast includes Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Tim Roth, and Nate Parker; Cliff Martinez (Drive, Contagion) is handling the score.

Synopsis: Arbitrage—buying low and selling high—depends on a person’s ability to determine the true value of any given market. It’s a talent that has made billionaire hedge fund magnate Robert Miller the very portrait of success in American business. But on the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Miller finds himself desperately trying to sell his trading empire to a major bank before the extent of his fraud is discovered. When an unexpected bloody error challenges his perception of what things are worth, Miller finds that his business is not the only thing hanging in the balance.

Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

Stacy Peralta, the director of two of my favourite docs of all time (Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants) returns to Sundance this year with Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, a continuation of sorts of his first documentary, Dogtown, which had its premiere in Park City in 2001. Peralta’s fourth film picks up in the early 1980s, when he and an unlikely group of outsiders formed the titular Bones Brigade, and revitalized skateboarding.

Synopsis: Today skateboarding is omnipresent. Take a walk down any street in any town, and you are destined to see someone riding a skateboard. Well, it wasn’t always like that. In the early ’80s, skateboarding was fading away until Stacy Peralta brought a profoundly talented group of outsiders together and dubbed them the Bones Brigade. This documentary chronicles their epic rise, using awesome archival footage and moving first-person accounts from Brigade members Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, and Rodney Mullen, among others. Through passion, drive, creativity, and a surprising sense of teamwork, they revitalized the sport and influenced generations to come.

The End Of Love

Writer/director/actor Mark Webber, who starred in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, steps back behind the camera to follow-up his debut Explicit Ills, which won three awards at SXSW, including the Narrative Feature Audience Award. Here he not only directs but stars as well, alongside his real life two-year-old son in a drama centered on the relationship between a young father and his infant boy who deals with death of the mother. The impressive cast extends to Shannyn Sossamon, Michael Cera, Jason Ritter and Amanda Seyfried.

Synopsis: Mark is a struggling actor stuck between the life he once knew and the one waiting for him. When the mother of his two-year-old son suddenly passes away, Mark is forced to confront his shortcomings. Their fates, now intertwined, hang in the balance as Mark grapples with his ability to grow up. When he meets Lydia, a young mother, he is no longer able to live in the comfort of denial.

Filly Brown

Regional Mexican superstar Jenni Rivera’s first film, Filly Brown, is heading to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. dramatic competition. Directed by Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos, the film follows an aspiring hip-hop artist (Gina Rodriguez) coming to grips with the fact that her mother (Rivera) is in prison. Propelled by an exceptional cast, and fused with a fierce hip-hop score, Filly Brown promises to have everyone talking, especially about the performance from Gina Rodriguez. Seven years ago, Hustle & Flow premiered at Sundance, and ended up winning an Oscar and made a career for director Craig Brewer. Can Philly Brown follow in its footsteps?

Synopsis: “Majo” Tonorio, a.k.a. Filly Brown, is a raw, young Los Angeles hip-hop artist who spits from the heart. When a sleazy record producer offers her a crack at rap stardom, Majo faces some daunting choices. With an incarcerated mother, a record contract could be the ticket out for her struggling family. But taking the deal means selling out her talent and the true friends who helped her to the cusp of success.

Red Lights

I was a huge fan of Rodrigo Cortés’ directorial debut, Buried - experimental minimalist genre filmmaking at its best. Cortés’ follow-up is a much more ambitious film with a bigger budget, bigger stars (including (Sigourney Weaver, Cilian Murphy, Robert De Niro and Elizabeth Olsen) and an actual plot and premise that expands outside the box.

Synopsis: Two investigators of paranormal hoaxes, the veteran Dr. Margaret Matheson and her young assistant, Tom Buckley, study the most varied metaphysical phenomena with the aim of proving their fraudulent origins. Simon Silver, a legendary blind psychic, reappears after an enigmatic absence of 30 years to become the greatest international challenge to both orthodox science and professional sceptics. Tom starts to develop an intense obsession with Silver, whose magnetism becomes stronger with each new manifestation of inexplicable events. As Tom gets closer to Silver, tension mounts, and his worldview is threatened to its core.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Director, producer, actor and writer Mark Duplass, who is best known for founding the mumblecore aesthetic, has one hell of a big year ahead. His Jeff, Who Lives at Home is on its way to theaters, and he is starring in multiple roles in both film and TV. One of those is Safety Not Guaranteed a madcap romantic comedy tingling with the tantalizing possibility of time travel. With a great cast, including Kristen Bell, Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Garlin, and an amusing premise, Safety Not Guaranteed is one of two very promising time travel films of 2012 (the other being Looper).

Synopsis: Three magazine employees are sent to investigate a personal advertisement placed in the newspaper: guy seeking partner for time travel. They venture to the coast and set up a haphazard surveillance. Darius is recruited as the shill; her dry wit and cynical nature are perfectly suited to trap this enigmatic oddball, Kenneth, and get a good story. But it is she who first sees past the paranoid loner façade to the compelling person inside. The drawback? This still doesn’t rule out the possibility that he just might be crazy.

Shut Up and Play the Hits

There are several music related documentaries on the horizon but the one that has everyone talking is Shut Up and Play the Hits, which chronicles the last 48 hours of LCD Soundsystem’s existence and features a rare and frank interview with bandleader James Murphy. The film is directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, whose documentary on the band Blur, No Distance Left to Run, was nominated for a Grammy.

Synopsis: With the release of their debut album in 2005, New York City’s LCD Soundsystem changed the face of dance music, combining equal parts punk, soul, and disco. Their devoted fan base steadily grew, bolstered by Grammy nominations and recognition as one of the best live bands in the world. In early 2011, touring to support their first Billboard Top 10 debut, LCD Soundsystem announced its largest gig to date—Madison Square Garden—and that the concert would be their last ever.

This Must Be the Place

40-year-old Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is considered an emerging master of modern cinema. His first English-language film, This Must Be the Place, stars Sean Penn as Cheyenne, a retired goth rocker living in Dublin who goes on a quest to find the man who persecuted his father, an ex-Nazi criminal who is currently a refugee in the United States. Penn’s obviously thrown himself into this role with the usual gusto, channelling Robert Smith from The Cure. The original music for the film was written by David Byrne of Talking Heads, and yes. the title of the film is a tribute to the Talking Heads song “This Must Be the Place.”

Synopsis: Sean Penn stars as Cheyenne, the bizarre former lead singer of an iconic goth rock band. Though fabulously rich and living in a palatial estate with his wife, Jane—Frances McDormand plays his down-to-earth emotional anchor—Cheyenne is phlegmatic and disconnected. Emotionally distant from his disapproving father since adolescence and facing a midlife crisis, he undertakes to make things right by, of all things, hunting a Nazi who tormented his father in a concentration camp. The resulting detective work and road trip lead the emotionally unmoored Cheyenne to self-realizations, human connections, and a showdown perhaps more surprising than any other in movie lore. At the end of this unpredictable journey, Cheyenne has tracked the Nazi long and far enough that he can finally consider whether deliverance is found in lifestyle, fame, heroism . . . or if, perhaps, it is tucked away somewhere behind the mascara

V/H/S

Bringing together some of the fastest rising genre filmmakers working today, this horror anthology sounds like it could be an amalgam of Creepshow and The X-Files. The diverse and deviously creative minds behind V/H/S include Adam Wingard (You’re Next), Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence, David Bruckner, Joe Swanberg and Ti West (House Of The Devil). As with all horror anthologies we expect some segments to be great and others to disappoint. The good news is most of the filmmaker have the advantage of working together in the past, which could help elevate the film above the average.

Synopsis: When a group of petty criminals is hired by a mysterious party to retrieve a rare piece of found footage from a rundown house in the middle of nowhere, they soon realize that the job isn’t going to be as easy as they thought. In the living room, a lifeless body holds court before a hub of old television sets, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes. As they search for the right one, they are treated to a seemingly endless number of horrifying videos, each stranger than the last.

Wrong

French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, aka electro artist Mr. Oizo, is back after making quite an impression with his psychic-killer-tire movie Rubber back in 2010. He has crafted a follow-up that may seem a little more down-to-earth but promises to be just as bizarre as his previous film. The Sundance catalogue proposes it as another rule-breaking piece of cinema, so those who didn’t like Rubber may want to avoid Wrong. Also worth noting: the soundtrack comes courtesy of Dupieux collaborating with French fuzzpop band Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family.

Synopsis: Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others: a pizza-delivering nymphomaniac, a jogging-addict neighbor in search of completeness, an opportunistic French Mexican gardener, and an off-kilter pet detective. In his journey to find Paul, Dolph may lose something even more vital—his mind.

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The Sundance Film Festival is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, the festival is a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The Festival has changed over the decades from a low-profile venue for small-budget, independent creators from outside the Hollywood system to a media extravaganza for Hollywood celebrity actors, paparazzi, and luxury lounges set up by companies that are not affiliated with Sundance.

Now the festival is getting ready for the 2012 edition and today they announced the jury members for this year’s Festival. They include Shari Berman, Scott Burns, Charles Ferguson, Nick Fraser, Mike Judge, Justin Lin, Anthony Mackie, Cliff Martinez, Julia Ormond, Dee Rees and Lynn Shelton.

Here is the official press release:

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the 22 members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the host of the Awards Ceremony on January 28. The Festival takes place January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Actress and writer Parker Posey will serve as the host of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony, set to take place January 28 at 7:00 p.m. MT at the Basin Recreation Field House in Park City, Utah and live-streamed at www.sundance.org/festival. Named “Queen of the Indies” by TIME Magazine, Posey has appeared in more than a dozen films at the Sundance Film Festival, including Party Girl (1995), House of Yes (1997) and Broken English (2007). Posey also appears in Price Check in the out-of-competition Premieres section at this year’s Festival.

Awards for short films will also be announced at a separate ceremony on January 24 at Park City’s Jupiter Bowl.

Photos and extended biographies of the jurors and Awards Ceremony host, in addition to the complete Festival lineup and schedule, are available at www.sundance.org/festival.
U.S. DOCUMENTARY JURY

Fenton Bailey
Fenton Bailey made his Sundance Film Festival debut in 1998 with the documentary Party Monster. He later co-wrote and co-directed a narrative version of Party Monster, which debuted at Sundance in 2003. Fenton has gone on to produce and/or direct seven films launched at the festival, including Inside Deep Throat and, most recently, the Emmy®-nominated documentary Becoming Chaz. In 2010 he produced the Emmy®-winning documentary The Last Beekeeper, and in 2011 he produced and directed the Emmy®-nominated Wishful Drinking.

Shari Berman
Shari Springer Berman is an Oscar- and Emmy®-nominated filmmaker. With partner Robert Pulcini, she wrote and directed American Splendor (Grand Jury Prize, 2003 Sundance Film Festival; FIPRESCI Award, Cannes Film Festival; Best Adapted Screenplay, Writers Guild Awards and Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination, Academy Awards®). Cinema Verite, Berman and Pulcini’s most recent film, received nine Emmy® nominations including Best Movie, Outstanding Directing and a win for Best Editing. Their first film, Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s, won Best Documentary Feature at the 1997 Hamptons International Film Festival.

Heather Croall
Heather Croall is the Director for Sheffield Doc/Fest, the premiere documentary event in the UK and regarded as one of the best documentary events in the world. Heather was previously the director of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), where she developed the innovative matchmaking pitching initiative MeetMarket.

Charles Ferguson
Charles Ferguson directed and produced Inside Job,which won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature in 2011. His first documentary, No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize. The film went on to be nominated for the Oscar in 2008. Charles is the author of four books, including High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars and Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World (co-authored with Charles Morris). He is currently working on a book about the global financial crisis, to be released by Random House in Spring 2012. Charles is the founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc.

Kim Roberts
Kim Roberts is an editor of feature documentaries. Her recent work includes Waiting for Superman, Food, Inc., Autism the Musical, and the upcoming Last Call at the Oasis. Kim won an Emmy® for Autism the Musical, her third nomination. She has received two Eddie Award nominations from the American Cinema Editors, and a WGA nomination. Her other films include: Oscar Nominees and Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winners Daughter from Danang and Long Night’s Journey into Day, Two Days in October, The Fall of Fujimori, Lost Boys of Sudan, Daddy & Papa, A Hard Straight and Splinters.

U.S. DRAMATIC JURY

Justin Lin
Justin Lin’s solo directorial debut, the critically acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow, premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and garnered a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. In April 2003, the film went on to make box office history as the highest-grossing (per-screen average) opening weekend film for MTV Films/Paramount Pictures. In 2009, he directed Universal’s Fast & Furious, which reunited the original cast of the franchise and sparked new life for series. Justin then directed the critically-acclaimed fifth installment of the franchise, Fast Five, which has become one of Universal’s most financially successful movies of all time.

Anthony Mackie

Anthony Mackie is a classically trained actor who studied at the Julliard School of Drama. His work spans the stage and screen. He was discovered after receiving rave reviews while playing Tupac Shakur in the off-Broadway Up Against the Wind. He earned IFP Spirit and Gotham Award nominations for his performance in Rodney Evan’s Brother to Brother, which won the Special Dramatic Jury Price at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, as well as best feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. He also played Sgt. JT Sanborn in Kathryn’s Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a film that not only earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, but also earned Academy Awards® for the Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Writing.

Cliff Martinez
Cliff Martinez began as a drummer for several bands during the punk era including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dickies. He later scored Steven Soderbergh’s first theatrical release, 1989’s sex, lies, and videotape, leading to a longstanding relationship which includes Kafka, The Limey, Traffic, Solaris and Contagion. His credits also include Narc, The Lincoln Lawyer and Nicolas Refn’s Drive.

Lynn Shelton
Lynn Shelton was a stage actor until attending graduate school in photography at the School of Visual Arts, at which point she became an editor and experimental filmmaker. Her first narrative feature as a writer/director, We Go Way Back, won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance in 2006. Her second, My Effortless Beauty, premiered at SXSW and earned her the Acura Someone to Watch Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Humpday, her third feature, was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival as well as the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Your Sister’s Sister premiered at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival and is playing in the out-of-competition Spotlight section at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Amy Vincent
Amy Vincent is an award-winning cinematographer. She has worked with Kasi Lemmons on Eve’s Bayou, Dr. Hugo, Caveman’s Valentine and with Craig Brewer on Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and the recently released Footloose. In addition, Amy’s work has garnered prestigious awards, including the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award for Hustle & Flow and the 2001 Women in Film Kodak Vision Award.
WORLD DOCUMENTARY JURY

Nick Fraser

Nick Fraser has served as the Editor of Storyville since it started in 1997. After graduating from Oxford he worked as a reporter, television producer and editor. His publications include a biography of Eva Peron, The Voice of Modern Hatred, and The Importance of Being Eton. Storyville films have won more than 200 awards, including four Oscars, a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and several Griersons, Emmys® and Peabodys.

Clara Kim

Clara Kim is Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center. She was formerly Gallery Director & Curator at REDCAT in Los Angeles where she organized residencies, commissions, exhibitions and publications with international contemporary artists. She was co-curator of the international biennial Media City Seoul 2010 and organized a global forum on independent spaces called State of Independence in 2011. She has sat on juries for Creative Capital Foundation, Artadia Artist Fellowship, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award; is on the advisory board of East of Borneo; and is the recipient of fellowships from the Warhol Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council.

Jean-Marie Teno
Jean-Marie Teno has been producing and directing films on the colonial and post-colonial history of Africa for over 25 years. His films are noted for their personal and original approach to issues of race, cultural identity, African history and contemporary politics. Teno’s films have been honored at festivals worldwide: Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Yamagata, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Liepzig, San Francisco, and London. Teno has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at the Pacific Film Archive of the University of California, Berkeley, a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, and has lectured at numerous universities. He was a Visiting professor at Hampshire College in 2009.
WORLD DRAMATIC JURY

Julia Ormond

British actress Julia Ormond received the London Drama Critics’ Award for Best Newcomer in Christopher Hampton’s Faith, Hope and Charity. She starred in the epic Legends of the Fall, played the lead role with Harrison Ford in the film Sabrina, and starred in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2010 she won a supporting actress Emmy® Award for her role in the HBO Movie Temple Grandin. She is the Founder and President of the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET), which works with corporations, NGOs, government officials, and individuals to create the systemic change needed to eradicate slavery at source. Julia is a former United Nations Goodwill Ambassador against Trafficking and Slavery, and the founding co-chair of Film Aid International. She can currently be seen in the Weinstein Company’s My Week with Marilyn in which she plays actress Vivien Leigh.

Richard Pena
Richard Peña has been the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Director of the New York Film Festival since 1988. At the Film Society, Peña has organized retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sacha Guitry, Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Aldrich, Roberto Gavaldon, Ritwik Ghatak, Kira Muratova, Youssef Chahine, Yasujiro Ozu, Carlos Saura and Amitabh Bachchan, as well as major film series devoted to African, Swedish, Israeli, Cuban, Polish, Hungarian, Arab, Korean, Taiwanese and Argentine cinema. He is a Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema, and from 2006-2009 was a Visiting Professor in Spanish at Princeton University. He is also currently the co-host of WNET/Channel 13’s weekly Reel

13.

Alexei Popogrebsky
Alexei Popogrebsky was born in 1972 in Moscow into a family of a screenwriter. He wrote and directed the award-winning films Roads to Koktebel (2003) (with Boris Khlebnikov), Simple Things (2007), and How I Ended This Summer (2010), set and shot on a polar station in the Russian Arctic and based entirely around two characters. The film won two Silver Bears in Berlin, Gold Hugo in Chicago and Best Film at BFI London Film Festival. Alexei is currently developing his first English-language project, a 3D fantasy drama.
ALFRED P. SLOAN JURY

Scott Burns

Scott Burns recently wrote the screenplay for the Warner Bros. film, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The film, starring Bradley Cooper and currently in development, is set to begin production in early 2012 and marks Burns’ fourth collaboration with Steven Soderbergh, who will direct. He also wrote Contagion and co-wrote the Academy Award®-winning Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass. As a producer, he received the Humanitas Prize and the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America for his Academy Award®-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He wrote and directed HBO Films’ critically acclaimed PU-239, which was produced by Soderbergh and George Clooney. Scott also wrote The Library, a stage play based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School with Kennedy/Marshall producing. He began his career in advertising and was part of the creative team responsible for the original “Got Milk?” campaign.

Tracy Day

Tracy Day co-founded the World Science Festival in 2008 with world-renowned physicist and best-selling author Brian Greene. She serves as CEO and oversees the creative and programmatic offerings of the World Science Festival. She is a four-time National News Emmy® award-winning journalist and has produced live and documentary programming for the nation’s preeminent television news divisions for over two decades. At ABC News she was producer for This Week with David Brinkley, editorial and field producer for Nightline and story editor for the news magazine, Day One. Tracy has produced documentaries, specials and live town meeting broadcasts for PBS, The Discovery Channel, CNN, Lifetime and CNBC. In addition to Emmy® Awards, she won a Hugo Award, a 2004 Clarion Award and the CINE Golden Eagle for investigative journalism. She has been an adjunct professor in the Leadership and the Arts program at the Sanford Institute for Public Policy.

Helen Fisher

Helen Fisher, PhD, is a biological Anthropologist at Rutgers University. She studies the evolution, brain systems (fMRI) and cross-cultural patterns of romantic love, mate choice, marriage, adultery, divorce, gender differences in the brain, personality, temperament, and business personalities. She has written five internationally best selling books, including WHY HIM? WHY HER?; WHY WE LOVE; and ANATOMY OF LOVE. She lectures worldwide. Among her speeches are those at the World Economic Forum at Davos, TED, United Nations, Smithsonian, Salk Institute, Harvard Medical School and Aspen Institute. She publishes widely in academic and lay journals. For her work in the media, Helen received the American Anthropological Association’s Distinguished Service Award.
SHORT FILM JURY

Mike Judge

Mike Judge is the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head for MTV and King of the Hill for FOX TV. He expanded into writing and directing his own live-action films, Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract. He’s done voices for South Park and acted in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids movies. Mike recently resurrected Beavis and Butt-Head with 12 new shows for MTV.

Dee Rees

Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University’s graduate film program and a Sundance Institute Directing Lab Fellow. She’s written and directed several short films including the award-winning Pariah, which screened at over 40 festivals worldwide. Her feature documentary, Eventual Salvation, premiered on the Sundance Channel in 2009, and her debut narrative feature, Pariah, opened the U.S. Dramatic competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Dee received a Renew Media Arts Fellowship for her work, and recently completed an endowed residency at Yaddo. Currently, Dee is writing an original screenplay for Focus Features and is also in development on a new television series with HBO. Dee interned on Spike Lee’s films When The Levees Broke and Inside Man.

Shane Smith
Shane Smith has been a programmer, jury member and speaker at film festivals all over the world. He is currently the Director of Public Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox. He previously served as the Executive Producer, In-flight Entertainment at Spafax Canada Inc., where he oversaw all in-flight programming for Air Canada. He also was the Director of Programming for the digital TV channels Movieola: The Short Film Channel and Silver Screen Classics. He was a Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival from 2006-2010 and for six years was the Director of the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival. He is a former Programmer for the Inside Out Festival, a member of the Organizing Committee of the International Short Film Conference and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the Centre for Aboriginal Media, presenters of the imagineNATIVE Film Festival.

The Sundance Film Festival
A program of the non-profit Sundance Institute, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water, and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative, has showcased the cinematic works of media artists including Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Matthew Barney. The 2012 Sundance Film Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Entertainment Weekly, HP, Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase SapphireSM; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe Systems Incorporated, Bing™, Canon, DIRECTV, Focus Forward, a partnership between GE and CINELAN, Southwest Airlines, Sprint and Yahoo!; Sustaining Sponsors – Bertolli® Frozen Meal Soups, FilterForGood®, a partnership between Brita® and Nalgene®, Grey Goose® Vodka, Hilton HHonors and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, L’Oréal Paris, Stella Artois®, Timberland, Time Warner Inc. and YouTubeTM. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute’s year-round programs for independent film and theatre artists. www.sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute

Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Here’s where Sundance gets fun!

The midnight selection always produces the best genre films and this year’s slate for the Jan. 19-29 looks to out-due last year’s picks. Perhaps the most unexpected inclusion is the debut film of comic Mike Birbiglia, who brings his story of late-night, unconscious wanderings to the big screen in Sleepwalk With Me.

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival, said, “In many ways, the extremes of the Festival’s program are most readily apparent in our out-of-competition sections, which showcase the wildest comedies, the most terrifying horror films and uncompromised visions from singular voices springing up from around the country and the world. We hope audiences experiment with their film selections to an equal degree as these filmmakers have experimented with their storytelling.”

Black Rock / U.S.A. (Director: Katie Aselton, Screenwriter: Mark Duplass) — Three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls’ weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival. Cast: Katie Aselton, Lake Bell, Kate Bosworth.

Excision / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Richard Bates, Jr.) — A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother. Cast: AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Ariel Winter, Roger Bart, John Waters.

Grabbers / Ireland, United Kingdom (Director: Jon Wright, Screenwriter: Kevin Lehane) — When the residents of an idyllic Irish fishing village are attacked by mysterious, blood-sucking sea creatures, a high blood alcohol content could be the only thing that gets them through the night. Cast: Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Russell Tovey, Bronagh Gallagher.

The Pact / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Nicholas McCarthy) — As a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother’s death, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home. Cast: Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien.

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS / United Kingdom (Directors: Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace) — A documentary that follows LCD Soundsystem front man James Murphy over a crucial 48-hour period, from the day of their final gig at Madison Square Garden to the morning after, the official end of one of the best live bands in the world.

Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim) — After two guys are given a billion dollars to make a movie, their Hollywood dreams run off course and they decide to rehabilitate a run-down shopping mall in an attempt to make the money back. Cast: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim.

V/H/S / U.S.A. (Directors: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence, Screenwriters: Simon Barrett, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence) — When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained for. Cast: Joe Swanberg, Calvin Reeder, Adam Wingard, Sophia Takal, Kate Lyn Sheil.

[via /Film and Funny or Die]

Sundance continues to announce their lineups for each program and now we have the list of movies featured in the Spotlight section – the non-competition section where the festival screens some of their favourite films from other fests. Here is the lineup for 2012.

Corpo Celeste / Italy (Director and screenwriter: Alice Rohrwacher) — After moving back to southern Italy with her mother and older sister, 13-year-old Marta struggles to find her place, restlessly testing the boundaries of an unfamiliar city and the catechism of the Catholic church. Cast: Yle Vianello, Salvatore Cantalupo, Anita Caprioli, Renato Carpentiere.

Declaration Of War / Belgium (Director: Valérie Donzelli, Screenwriters: Jérémie Elkaïm, Valérie Donzelli) — A young couple embark upon a painful, enlightening journey when they discover that their newborn child is very ill. Cast: Valérie Donzelli, Jérémie Elkaïm, César Desseix. North American Premiere.

Elena / Russia (Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev, Screenwriter: Oleg Negin) — A meditative, modern-noir tale about an older woman, Elena, who marries the wealthy business man for whom she worked and, when his health fails, is forced to deal with his estranged daughter who threatens her inheritance. Cast: Andrey Smirnov, Nadezhda Markina, Elena Lyadova, Alexey Rozin.

Monsieur Lazhar / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Philippe Falardeau) — An elegant reflection on loss and death focused on an Algerian immigrant teacher who brings emotional stability to a Montreal middle school class shaken by the suicide of their well-liked teacher. Cast: Fellag, Sophie Nélisse, Émilien Néron, Danielle Proulx, Brigitte Poupart.

The Orator (O le Tulafale) / New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: Tusi Tamasese) — A Samoan villager must defend his land and family when they are threatened by powerful adversaries. Cast: Fa’afiaula Sagote, Tausili Pushparaj, Salamasina Mataia, Ioata Tanielu.

The Raid / Indonesia (Director and screenwriter: Gareth Evans) — All hell breaks loose when an elite SWAT team, given orders to raid a run-down Jakarta apartment building that houses the city’s most notorious crime boss, is forced to fight their way to freedom or die trying. Cast: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah. U.S. Premiere.

Where Do We Go Now? / France, Lebanon, Italy, Egypt (Director: Nadine Labaki, Screenwriters: Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily, Rodney Al Haddad, with the collaboration of Thomas Bidegain) — A group of Lebanese women try to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in their village. Cast: Claude Baz Moussawbaa, Layla Hakim, Nadine Labaki, Yvonne Maalouf, Antoinette Noufaily. U.S. Premiere

Wuthering Heights / United Kingdom (Director: Andrea Arnold, Screenwriters: Andrea Arnold, Olivia Hetreed) — A freshly conceived retelling of Emily Bronte’s classic novel about Heathcliff and Cathy, two teenagers whose passionate love for each other creates a storm of vengeance. Cast: Kaya Scodelario, James Howson, Solomon Glave, Shannon Beer, Steve Evets. U.S. Premiere

Your Sister’s Sister / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Lynn Shelton) — While still mourning the recent death of his brother, a bereft and confused man finds love and direction in a most unexpected place. Cast: Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass. U.S. Premiere

Filly Brown / U.S.A. (Directors: Youssef Delara, Michael D. Olmos, Screenwriter: Youssef Delara) — A Hip Hop-driven drama about a Mexican girl who rises to fame and consciousness as she copes with the incarceration of her mother through music. Cast: Lou Diamond Phillips, Gina Rodriguez, Jenni Rivera, Edward James Olmos.

The First Time / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jonathan Kasdan) — Two high schoolers meet at a party. Over the course of a weekend, things turn magical, romantic, complicated and funny, as they discover what it’s like to fall in love for the first time. Cast: Brittany Robertson, Dylan O’Brien, Craig Roberts, James Frecheville, Victoria Justice.

Keep the Lights On / U.S.A. (Director: Ira Sachs, Screenwriters: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias) — An autobiographically inspired story of a passionate long-term relationship between two men driven by addiction and secrets but bound by love and hopefulness. Cast: Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth, Julianne Nicholson, Souleymane Sy Savane, Paprika Steen.

Marina Abramović The Artist is Present / U.S.A. (Director: Matthew Akers) — Marina Abramović prepares for a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York hoping to finally silence four decades of skeptics who proclaim: ‘But why is this art?’

The Other Dream Team / Lithuania, U.S.A. (Director: Marius Markevicius) — The 1992 Lithuanian National Basketball Team went from the clutches of Communism to the Summer Olympics in Barcelona – a testament to the powerful role of sports as a catalyst for cultural identity.