The line-up for the 2022 Sundance film festival has been unveiled. In January, 82 Features, 6 Indie Episodic, and 15 New Frontier Projects will premiere before audiences and critics in Park City, Utah, with the festival taking place both physically and virtually. The 2022 Festival will take place January 20–30, with tickets going on sale to the public from the 17th of this month.
There are too many titles to list individually, but we’re excited for Cha Cha Real Smooth which stars Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Vanessa Burghardt, Evan Assante, Brad Garrett, and Leslie Mann. Cooper Raiff writes and directs the film, which is to receive its world premiere at the festival. The film follows a directionless college graduate who embarks on a relationship with a young mother and her teenage daughter while learning the boundaries of his new bar mitzvah party-starting gig.
There’s also Duel from writer/ director Riley Stearns starring Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul. The film revolves around Sarah who, after receiving a terminal illness diagnosis, commissions a clone of herself to ease the loss for her friends and family. When she makes a miraculous recovery, her attempt to have her clone decommissioned fails, and leads to a court-mandated duel to the death.
Jesse Eisenberg writes and directs When You Finish Saving the World with Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard leading the central cast. In the film, Evelyn and her oblivious son Ziggy seek out replacements for each other as Evelyn desperately tries to parent an unassuming teenager at her shelter, while Ziggy fumbles through his pursuit of a brilliant young woman at school.
Lena Dunham writes and directs Sharp Stick, which revolves around Sarah Jo, a naive 26-year-old living on the fringes of Hollywood with her mother (longing for money) and sister (longing for exposure). She just longs to be seen. When she begins an affair with her older employer, she is thrust into an education on sexuality, loss and power.
Flying the flag for the UK is Living. Oliver Hermanus directs from a screenplay written by Kazuo Ishiguro with Bill Nighy and Tom Burke amongst the impressive cast. In 1952 London, veteran civil servant Williams has become a small cog in the bureaucracy of rebuilding England post-WWII. As endless paperwork piles up on his desk, he learns he has a fatal illness. Thus begins his quest to find some meaning in his life before it slips away.
There’s also the Emma Thompson-led Good Luck to You, Leo Grande from director Sophie Hyde and screenwriter Katy Brand. Nancy Stokes, a retired school teacher, is yearning for some adventure, and some sex. Good sex. And she has a plan: she hires a young sex worker named Leo Grande. Thompson is Nancy with Daryl McCormack playing the titular Leo Grande.
Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth star in Resurrection, Andrew Semans’ film also receiving a world premiere at Sundance 2022. Margaret’s life is in order. She is capable, disciplined, and successful. Soon, her teenage daughter, who Margaret raised by herself, will be going off to a fine university, just as Margaret had intended. Everything is under control. That is, until David returns, carrying with him the horrors of Margaret’s past.
Documentary-wise, there is The Princess, where Princess Diana’s story is told exclusively through contemporaneous archive creating a bold and immersive narrative of her life and death. Turning the camera back on ourselves, it also illuminates the profound impact she had and how the public’s attitude to the monarchy was, and still is, shaped by these events.
We Need to Talk About Cosby which is described as follows: Can you separate the art from the artist? Should you even try? While there are many people about whom we could ask those questions, none pose a tougher challenge than Bill Cosby. The documentary receives its world premiere in Utah.
We’ll be bringing you coverage from the festival when it kicks off in Park City next month.
