Jonah Hill on his transition from playing comedies to dramas: "I mean, I love all different kinds of films. I've gotten to express myself a lot comedically, and I like doing that. But opportunities like this are the greatest thing in the entire world, and it's just about playing the character truthfully. There are ridiculous situations in this film that would be the same in a broad comedy."
Welsey MannThe Sundance Film Festival has added 10 films, events and New Frontier installations to its 2015 lineup, including a new film starring festival founder Robert Redford.
The Premieres section bolstered its lineup with Ken Kwapis’ A Walk in the Woods ,about an aging travel writer (Redford) who sets out to hike the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail with a long-estranged high school buddy (Nick Nolte). The film, making its world premiere at the festival, also stars Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman and Kristen Schaal. Also joining the Premieres lineup is Rupert Goold’s drama True Story, which chronicles the cat-and-mouse relationship between disgraced New York Times reporter Michael Finkel and accused killer Christian Longo. Jonah Hill, James Franco and Felicity Jones star.
Related Stories
Read more Sundance Unveils Short-Films Lineup
The festival, marking its 31st incarnation, will take place Jan. 22-Feb. 1 in and around Park City, Utah. All total, the indie film mecca will screen 123 feature-length films, including 106 world premieres. This year’s feature-length and short films were selected from a record 12,166 submissions.
Among the other late additions is a trio of kids’ films — Juan Pablo Buscarini’s The Games Maker, Grethe Boe-Waal’s Operation Arctic and Richard Starzak and Mark Burton’s Shaun the Sheep — as well as a New Frontier installation that re-creates the hike depicted in the film Wild. Dubbed Wild — The Experience, the installation from artists Flix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael is described as a fully immersive media environment covering an intimate moment on the Pacific Crest Trail between a woman, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), and her mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern), via a vision from the afterlife.
Other additions to the Sundance lineup follow.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Pioneers Palace B’92/ Romania (Director and screenwriter: Bobby Paunescu) — In the wild days of post-Ceausescu Bucharest, teenagers open a disco at their high school, terrified of an AIDS scare after their visit to a local brothel. Part of the Festival’s new Art of Film program, Pioneers Palace B’92 was produced by film students and supported by Mandragora Film Academy together with Solar Indie Junction. Cast: Toto Dumitrescu, Mihai Dorobantu, Maria Bata, Dragos Savulescu, Alice Halpert, Alice Peneaca. World Premiere
NEW FRONTIER
Herders
Artists: Felix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphael
Mongolian pastoral herders are one of the world’s last remaining nomadic cultures. For millennia they have lived on the steppes, grazing their livestock on the grasslands. Through a series of virtual reality experiences, the viewer is invited into the reality of a nomadic family of yak herders.
Strangers With Patrick Watson
Artists: Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël, Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski
Strangers With Patrick Watson invites the viewer to spend an intimate moment with celebrated Montreal musician Patrick Watson at work in his studio loft on a winter’s day. Cast: Patrick Watson.
FROM THE COLLECTION
A selection from The Sundance Collection at UCLA, a film preservation program established in 1997. The Collection is specifically devoted to the preservation of independent documentaries, narratives and short films supported by Sundance Institute and has grown to nearly 2,300 holdings representing 1,800 titles, including recent additions such as El Mariachi, Winter’s Bone, Johnny Suede, Working Girls, Crumb, Groove, Better This World, The Oath and Paris, Texas. Titles are generously donated by individual filmmakers, distributors and studios.
Paris Is Burning/U.S.A. (Director: Jennie Livingston): Paris Is Burning visits black and Latino drag balls of the 1980s in New York City, where at raucous celebrations, rival Houses create intense competition and provide deep sustenance. This world within a world is instantly familiar, filled with intense yearnings for “Realness” that reflects America itself. Cast: Dorian Corey, Freddie Pendavis, Pepper Labeija, Junior Labeija, Venus Xtravaganza, Willi Ninja. The screening will feature a DCP of the new digital restoration of Paris is Burning created from original 16mm elements. This recent effort restores the feature to the original uncropped aspect ratio. The project represents the collaborative efforts of the Sundance Institute, the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, and UCLA Film & Television Archive, with permission of Miramax.
Email: Tatiana.Siegel@THR.com
Twitter: @TatianaSiegel27
