MANILA, Philippines - In 2010, the Sundance Institute — which runs the prestigious and well-regarded Sundance Film Festival out of Utah annually — decided to expand its reach to audiences outside the US, bringing films that premiered at Sundance to other parts of the world. Two years later, Sundance Film Festival: London was born, bringing new American independent cinema to the UK and Europe. Two years after that, in 2014, Sundance thought to go even farther away to Asia, choosing the rich, cultural city of Hong Kong as the home base for its Asian expansion.
Now on its third year, Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong proved to be bigger and more expansive than ever. Bringing over 12 award-winning feature films that made their premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, as well as their directors, several short films and master classes featuring professionals of the entertainment business, Sundance Hong Kong, held in the new and spacious Metroplex cinemas at Kowloon Bay, felt even more like its American parent.
One of the great things about the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival is their relationship with their directors. Many of the Sundance films come out of the institute’s several filmmaking programs, so these films really feel like a result of great partnership between the festival and the filmmakers. For most of the screenings, directors flew in — many of them their first time in Hong Kong, let alone screening one of their films in Hong Kong — and held Q&As after the screening, which added a level of importance and interactivity with the audience, something many other film festivals can learn from.
Ranging from laugh-out-loud comedy (Swiss Army Man) to deep-seated drama (Spa Night) to enlightening documentaries (Life, Animated), there’s no denying that the set of films Sundance brought over to Asia was eclectic and wonderful. Sundance hopes to bring the best of its festival to audiences outside, specifically new American independent cinema so that more audiences can see these terrific, original films. The crowds were very responsive. Hong Kong, being a diverse kind of city, brought out different nationalities — British, American, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Australian and more, and everyone came together to enjoy some truly special films.
The festival opened with Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s Swiss Army Man, a film that defies desciption when it comes to its genre. While it is a hilarious comedy, it’s also incredibly strange, bordering on the fantastical. When a man stranged on a deserted island (a fantastic Paul Dano) finds a washed-up corpse (a committed Daniel Radcliffe) on the island he’s on, he befriends the corpse, as well as uses it to get off the island. This isn’t an ordinary corpse, however — it’s a farting, water-spewing, karate-chopping, talking corpse. Yes, it’s as weird as it sounds, but it’s also one of the most creative and original films in recent memory. Scheinert and Kwan, who directed the insane Turn Down For What music video, won the Directing Award at Sundance this year, and it’s easy to see why in this masterful, unique comedy about friendship and survival.
If you’re more of the romantic type, Richard Tanne’s Southside With You is a perfect date night film. Inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date, the film is a quiet, but moving and lovely film about falling in love. If Richard Linklater’s Before series starred the Obamas, this would be it. Incredibly well-written, with great observations about race, women and inequality, Southside With You hits places you wouldn’t expect from such a simple film. Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers, who play Michelle and Barack, respectively, are wonderful in their roles, avoiding caricature and nailing their real-life counterparts’ souls.
Actress Clea DuVall put on her writing, directing and starring hats for her debut feature film The Intervention, a well-executed, touching, perfectly-observed dramedy about friends and relationships. In the film, which DuVall noted took only 18 days to shoot in her Q&A, a group of four couples spend a weekend together. Unfortunately for one couple, they find out the weekend was planned to give them an intervention about them needing to get a divorce. The film boasts great performances, especially Sundance award winner Melanie Lynskey as the boozy and always-nervous ringleader, a clever script and crisp direction that shows what DuVall is capable of behind the camera.
American independent cinema is alive and well in Sundance, the largest American independent film festival there is, in films like Antonio Campos’ Christine, which centers on the true-life tragedy of Christine Chubbock, a news reporter who became known for committing suicide live on the air. Christine has one of the best performances of the year in it from Rebecca Hall, playing the depressed, misguided Christine. Released in the Philippines a couple of months ago, Matt Ross’ Captain Fantastic, about a father and his many children who live off the grid, is also one of the most unique films currently available, and features a career best performance from Viggo Mortensen. There is also Meera Menon’s Equity, which focuses on females in the high-stakes investment business, and Andrew Ahn’s Spa Night, a coming-of-age film that is seen through a very specific point of view — a closeted Korean-American dealing with family expectations, Korean tradition and his sexuality that is blossoming within Korean spas.
Sundance also brought over a couple of documentaries from the 2016 festival. The first was a heartwarming and powerful documentary about passion, autism and the power of Disney. In Life Animated, we meet a boy (Owen Suskind) diagnosed with autism and doesn’t speak for four years. Only when his father talks to him with an Iago puppet from Aladdin does the boy finally respond. The docu is both an involving and intricate character study about Owen, as well as a study on how our passions shape our world.
The other documentary, The Lovers and the Despot, is a stranger-than-fiction tale about a famous South Korean director and actress kidnapped by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in the ’70s, hoping to make North Korean cinema better. With some really insightful interviews, including one from the actress herself, the film is such an intriguing docu about one of the most insane stories in cinema history.
Sundance Hong Kong also had a Virtual Reality Forum, dipping its feet into this technology that is becoming more commonplace, and allowed festivalgoers to put on a pair of VR headsets and experience it first-hand, as well as director discussions between Hong Kong and US filmmakers. The festival continues to grow and build upon what it started in 2014. Sundance Hong Kong has grown from just a film showcase, and continues to grow in becoming its own full-fledged film festival. It’s easy to see why Sundance chose Hong Kong with its magnificent cinematic history — from Bruce Lee, to John Woo, to Wong Kar-wai. Thankfully, being only a quick plane ride away, Sundance Hong Kong is accessible for cinephiles of the Philippines looking for a taste of the American film festival, and we hope that Sundance keeps coming back to Asia.
(Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong ran from Sept. 22 to Oct. 2).