UPDATED 9/2/2014: Sundance’s October shorts program combines four animated films from this year’s festival including Bernardo Britto’s award-winning Yearbook, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sundance’s “active social media” saga continues.
Thursday on their Facebook page, Sundance Cinemas Madison announced their next round of festival films playing at Hilldale as part of their “Screening Room Calendar.”
Sept. 19 features Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago. Lydia Smith’s profile of six pilgrims and their 500-mile trip to the famous Way of St. James plumbs the transformative nature of hiking for spirituality, heat, and plenty of blisters. Smith will appear in person for Q&As on Sept. 20 and Sept. 21.
Sept. 26 critiques U.S. politics on two fronts with its twin documentaries. In Alive Inside, Michael Rossato-Bennett follows social worker Dan Cohen on his quest to crucify the American health care system through the resurrecting powers of music. With a focus on Alzheimer’s patients, Cohen’s “music as medicine” approach puts health care providers on blast for privileging expensive medications over therapy and more affordable treatments. Opening the same day, the Kickstarter-funded PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes expands the case study in Citizen Koch and expands it to money’s corrupting influence on nationwide politics. Where’s our documentary about crowdfunding’s influence on film projects?
Two dramatic efforts open on Oct. 3 in I Origins and Land Ho!. From Another Earth‘s Mike Cahill, I Origins stars Brit Marling alongside walking production bomb Michael Pitt as Pitt makes a breakthrough discovery about the biological underpinnings of the human eye. In Land Ho!, two brothers-in-law reconnect on an Icelandic road trip. Small in scope and ambition, the dramedy stars Australian transplant Paul Eenhorn (This is Martin Bonner) and Earl Lynn Nelson, the latter of whom gives a big colorful performance as a 70 year old pot-smoking womanizer.
A bonkers German comedy in Wetlands opens on Oct. 10. Carla Juri plays a sex-obsessed teen who lands in the hospital after a shaving accident in her lower regions. During her stay, she tries to reconnect her divorced parents, hits on her beguiling male nurse, and entertains diatribe after diatribe about the liberating powers of bodily fluids. Judging from its trailer, Wetlands looks like it plays into the naive and occasionally disgusting charm of Juri’s worldview for an extremely stylish effort.
William H. Macy makes his directorial debut in Rudderless (Oct. 17), where Billy Crudup finds a box of his deceased son’s recordings and is surprised to discover a hidden talent. Crudup and Anton Yelchin come to find success as a duo covering his son’s songs in what looks like Crazy Heart meets World’s Greatest Dad.
Oct. 24 features Listen Up Phillip from indie darling and comedy weirdo Alex Ross Perry. Jason Schwartzmann’s talented novelist sets himself aflame and takes a sabbatical at the summer home of his literary hero (Jonathan Pryce). Even if Sundance’s digital projectors can’t help us, that this was shot on 16mm is worth the price of admission on its own. The best part? Unlike Perry’s previous two efforts, we don’t have to wait around for a distribution deal.
Sundance concludes their Screening Room Calendar with festival short films beginning on Oct. 31. As of now, the exact program remains up in the air according to Sundance GM Merijoy Endrizzi-Ray in an email.
- The Screening Room Calendar begins on Sept. 12 with the Michael Winterbottom/Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon road trip sequel The Trip to Italy. Expect Michael Caine to show up in one form or another.