Sundance Film Festival 2024: 10 to watch, from Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding and Pedro Pascal in Freaky Tales to Saoirse Ronan in The Outer

Set in China in the post-one-child era and with a cast led by Xu Feng and Guo Qiu, the film puts a middle-class family under the microscope as tensions rise after their only son brings home a new friend.

The director notes that their family study “sets to amplify their hidden fears, desires and tensions… As we get closer, they become more mysterious.”

2. Black box diaries

In 2020, journalist and author Shiori Ito was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine for her contribution to Japan’s #MeToo movement. Now he adds documentary filmmaker to his list of achievements Black Box Diarywhich enters the World Cinema Documentary category.

The film chronicles her own attempt to investigate a sexual assault, as she tries to take down a high-profile offender. Already famous in Japan, Ito gained notoriety for trying to expose the country’s antiquated legal system and social norms.

It is bound to be one of the most talked about films of the festival.

3. Agent of happiness

What is fulfillment? What does that mean for everyone? These questions stop An agent of happinessAn idiosyncratic non-fiction film playing in the world cinema documentary strand.

Directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbo, the film follows Amber, who works for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness in the Himalayan mountain state.

Searching for love, and also grappling with her place in society as a member of Bhutan’s Nepali minority, Amber discovers what it means to be happy by reaching out to different homes in a remote kingdom.

It’s a fascinating insight into a little-documented country.

4. Nocturnal

It’s rare that a nature documentary is programmed at Sundance, but from two filmmakers from New Delhi, India, comes this deeply spiritual and surprising non-fiction film.

Premiering in the World Cinema documentary line-up, nocturnalDirected by Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan, takes us deep into the forests of the Eastern Himalayas and into the secret world of moths.

These most mysterious insects are drawn by a bright light to a large canvas in the forest, allowing viewers to observe them in their habitat.

An experimental work blessed with immersive sound, it is a unique look at how it forms an important part of the ecosystem.

5. Love Lies Bleeding

British filmmaker Rose Glasson won considerable acclaim for her well-crafted feature debut, Stark Horror. saint maud, Back in 2019. Now, five years later, it is back Love Lies BleedingHer first American-set adventure and one that mixes love and loyalty with gleeful violence.

Kristen Stewart plays Lou, a reclusive gym manager who falls for Jackie (Katie O’Brien), an aspiring bodybuilder headed to Las Vegas. But as their relationship unfolds, Lou’s crime family becomes involved, turning their world upside down.

Playing in the midnight strand of the festival, this one has an entire cult tattooed on it.

6. And so it begins

Ramona Diaz is an established Filipino-American documentary filmmaker whose work includes 2003. ImeldaA look at former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos.

Now she is back together And so it beginsSet against the backdrop of national elections at the end of Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial presidency as a form of popular movement to fight attacks on truth and democracy.

At a time when election campaigning is heating up in the US, Diaz’s film will provide a stark reminder of the fragile nature of electoral systems around the world.

7. Strange stories

8. Attendance

Steven Soderbergh, who famously began his career at Sundance in 1989 Sex, lies and video tapes, is back with what could be his first out-and-out horror film.

attendance The latter also marks his second collaboration with acclaimed screenwriter David Koepp jurassic park, Following his 2022 tech-thriller, km.

set in one place, attendance Stars Lucy Liu and Julia Fox (who previously appeared in Soderbergh’s Underrated No sudden moves) in an eerie-sounding story about a family who moves into a suburban house and discovers that they are not alone.

Showing in the festival’s premieres strand, you might expect this not to be a run-of-the-mill haunted house tale, given Soderbergh and Koep’s track record.

9. The Outrun

German director Nora Fingscheidt made an early impression with 2019 System Crasher, a film about an unruly child pinballed by social care institutions. Since then, she has created Unforgivable Released on Netflix, with Sandra Bullock. Now it returns with The Outrun.

Collaborating with the brilliant Saoirse Ronan, the film is an adaptation of Amy Liptrott’s memoir of addiction and recovery. Ronan plays Rona, a drug and alcohol addict who flees London as her life spirals out of control in the wilds of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, where she grew up.

Expect a deeply personal, poignant journey, fiercely acted by Ronan.

10. Winner

Following 2023 reality With Sidney Sweeney, Susannah Fogel the winner The real life whistle-blower is the second film in a year focusing on the reality winner.

This time Britain’s Emilia Jones, who appeared in Fogle’s latest film Cat personPlays a contractor for the US National Security Agency who is being prosecuted for uncovering Russia’s hacking of the 2016 US election.

When reality focused on the initial interrogation of Winner by the FBI, using verbatim transcripts from her arrest, the winner Will give a broader view of her story. Given the controversial nature of the winner — she’s a fitness fanatic from Texas who also kept guns at home — it should be fascinating.

The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 18 to January 28.