UPDATE (11 January 2022): The Sundance Film Festival has cancelled its in-person programming in Park City, Utah, and will once again hold a virtual edition. The organisers made this decision owing to the surge in the COVID-19 Omicron variant in the USA. This move has not been without consequences, since the highest-profile European film selected for the edition, Michel Hazanavicius's zombie comedy Final Cut [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Michel Hazanavicius
scheda film], has already been withdrawn from it. In the words of the filmmakers, "We believe that it is best to premiere Final Cut in a theatre with a live audience and have made the difficult decision to remove the film from this year’s festival. We wish Sundance and all the filmmakers involved an excellent festival and look forward to sharing Final Cut with audiences very soon.”

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It’s mid-December: the days are shortening, the (masked) Christmas shopping is ongoing, and the elite festivals of 2022’s first quarter are finalising their line-ups, crossing fingers for somewhat “back to normal”, in-person editions. Yesterday, during a live presentation at 3pm US Eastern Time, the Sundance Institute announced the new independent works to be featured at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, taking place from 20-30 January in Park City, Utah, as well as via its enhanced, online platform, which was such a salve for delegates amidst the strict global lockdowns of last year. Amongst the 82 feature-length films announced, 28 are fully or partially European co-productions, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the global acclaim seen by last edition’s hits, such as Flee [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
scheda film], Censor [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Prano Bailey-Bond
scheda film] and El Planeta [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Amalia Ulman
scheda film].

The majority of the European films are concentrated in the two World Cinema competitions, with a handful more, largely of a genre-film nature, dotted around the Premieres and Midnight sections. Ones to watch include Klondike [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Maryna Er Gorbach
scheda film] by Maryna Er Gorbach, a dark meditation on the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, and Utama [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alejandro Loayza
scheda film] by Bolivian filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi, made in co-production with France, which is said to have passed over invitations from the autumn festivals in favour of a Sundance premiere.

More familiar names include Michel Hazanavicius, trading Godard and silent-era starlets for their logical follow-up, flesh-eating zombies, in Final Cut [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Michel Hazanavicius
scheda film], his French-language remake of the innovative Japanese horror hit One Cut of the Dead. Living [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] finds Bill Nighy and acclaimed South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus also in remake mode, for that of Akira Kurosawa’s humanist masterpiece Ikiru, with post-war 1950s London taking the place of Japan in a similar time period. Also tipped for festivals last year was Hatching [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Hanna Bergholm
scheda film] by Finland’s Hanna Bergholm, here taking a spot in the Midnight section, whose female-driven body-horror logline sounds in the vein of Titane [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
scheda film]. The Worst Person in the World [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Joachim Trier
scheda film] now has a US release strategy, devised by its distributor NEON, mimicking that of Portrait of a Lady on Fire [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Céline Sciamma
scheda film] with a Valentine’s-timed February release; it gets an additional boost here in the Spotlight section.

Returning to the philosophy of its early days, set out by founder Robert Redford, the event is “doubling down on festival discovery”, in the words of Tabitha Jackson, the festival director taking the reins on her second edition to date. She further said, “We’re excited to return to our home in Utah, but also to come together in new ways. Building on our experience last year, we’ve discovered new possibilities of convergence, and we embrace the fact that we are now an expanded community in which active participation matters, and audience presence – however it manifests itself – is essential to our mission.”

The full list of films in the World Cinema competitive sections:

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Brian and Charles [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Jim Archer (UK)
The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Francisca Alegria (Germany/France/Chile/USA)
Dos estaciones - Juan Pablo González (Mexico/France/USA)
Gentle [+leggi anche:
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intervista: László Csuja e Anna Nemes
scheda film] - Anna Eszter Nemes, László Csuja (Hungary)
Girl Picture [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alli Haapasalo
scheda film] - Alli Haapasalo (Finland)
Klondike [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Maryna Er Gorbach
scheda film] - Maryna Er Gorbach (Ukraine/Turkey)
Leonor Will Never Die - Martika Ramirez Escobar (Philippines)
Mars One - Gabriel Martins (Brazil)
Utama [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Alejandro Loayza
scheda film] - Alejandro Loayza Grisi (Bolivia/Uruguay/France)
You Won't Be Alone [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Goran Stolevski (Australia/UK/Serbia)

World Cinema Documentary Competition

All That Breathes [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Shaunak Sen
scheda film] - Shaunak Sen (India/UK)
Calendar Girls [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Maria Loohufvud, Love Martinsen (Sweden)
A House Made of Splinters [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Simon Lereng Wilmont (Denmark)
Midwives - Hnin Ei Hlaing (Canada)
The Mission [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Tania Anderson (Finland)
Nothing Compares [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Kathryn Ferguson (Ireland/UK)
Sirens - Rita Baghdadi (USA)
Tantura [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Alon Schwarz (Israel)
The Territory [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Alex Pritz (Brazil/Denmark/USA)
We Met in Virtual Reality [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Joe Hunting (UK)

The list of European productions and co-productions in the parallel selections announced so far:

Premieres

Final Cut [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Michel Hazanavicius
scheda film] - Michel Hazanavicius (France)
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande [+leggi anche:
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trailer
scheda film] - Sophie Hyde (UK/USA)
La Guerra Civil [+leggi anche:
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trailer
scheda film] - Eva Longoria Bastón (UK)
Living [+leggi anche:
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trailer
scheda film] - Oliver Hermanus (UK)
My Old School [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Jono McLeod (UK)
The Princess [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Ed Perkins (UK)

Midnight

Hatching [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Hanna Bergholm
scheda film] - Hanna Bergholm (Finland)
Meet Me in the Bathroom [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace (UK)
Piggy [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Carlota Pereda
scheda film] - Carlota Martínez Pereda (Spain)
Speak No Evil [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Christian Tafdrup
scheda film] - Christian Tafdrup (Denmark)
Babysitter [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Monia Chokri (Canada/France)

Spotlight

Happening [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Anamaria Vartolomei
scheda film] - Audrey Diwan (France)
Three Minutes - A Lengthening [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Bianca Stigter
scheda film] - Bianca Stigter (Netherlands/UK)
The Worst Person in the World [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Joachim Trier
scheda film] - Joachim Trier (Norway/France/Sweden/Denmark)

Indie Episodic Program

The Dark Heart - Gustav Möller (Sweden)