Eye For Film >> Festivals >> Sundance >> 2023 >> Premieres
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Past Lives and The Deepest Breath
Cassandro
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Roger Ross Williams; Writer: Roger Ross Williams,; Stars: Gael García Bernal, Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, Raúl Castillo)
World premiere. Fiction
Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the "Liberace of Lucha Libre." In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life.
Cat Person
(Country: France, US; Year: 2023; Director: Susanna Fogel; Writer: Michelle Ashford; Stars: Emilia Jones, Nicholas Braun, Geraldine Viswanathan, Hope Davis, Fred Melamed, Isabella Rossellini)
College student Margot meets 33-year-old Robert at the cinema where she works. After a casual flirtation at the concession stand, they carry on conversations through texts. As their perceptions of each other collide, events spiral out of control. Based on The New Yorker short story by Kristen Roupenian.
World premiere. Fiction
The Deepest Breath
(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Laura McGann; Writer: Laura McGann)
A champion freediver and expert safety diver seemed destined for one another despite the different paths they took to meet at the pinnacle of the freediving world. A look at the thrilling rewards — and inescapable risks — of chasing dreams through the depths of the ocean.
World premiere. Documentary
Deep Rising
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Matthieu Rytz; Stars: Narrated by, Jason Momoa)
The fate of the planet's last untouched wilderness, the deep ocean, is under threat as a secretive organisation is about to allow massive extraction of seabed metals to address the world's energy crisis.
World premiere. Documentary
Drift
(Country: France, UK, Greece; Year: 2023; Director: Anthony Chen; Writer: Susanne Farrell, Alexander Maksik, based on the novel by Alexander Maksik; Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba)
Refugee Jacqueline, alone and penniless on a Greek island embarks on a friendship with a tour guide.
World premiere. Fiction
Passages and Rye Lane
Eileen
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: William Oldroyd; Writer: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh, based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh; Stars: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague)
Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counsellor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path.
World premiere. Fiction
Fairyland
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Andrew Durham; Writer: Andrew Durham, based on the novel by Alysia Abbott; Stars: Scoot McNairy, Emilia Jones, Geena Davis, Cody Fern, Adam Lambert, Maria Bakalova)
World premiere. Fiction
Set against the backdrop of San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene in the Seventies and Eighties, chronicling a father-daughter relationship as it evolves from an era of bohemian decadence to the heartbreaking AIDS crisis.
Food And Country
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Laura Gabbert)
World premiere. Documentary
America’s policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it.
Invisible Beauty
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng)
World premiere. Documentary
Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity.
It’s Only Life After All
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Alexandria Bombach)
World premiere. Documentary. Day One
Blending 40 years of home movies, film archives, and intimate present-day vérité, a poignant reflection from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of iconic folk rock duo Indigo Girls. A timely look into the obstacles, activism, and life lessons of two queer friends who never expected to make it big.
Radical and The Pod Generation
Jamojaya
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Justin Chon; Writer: Maegan Houang; Stars: Brian Imanuel, Yayu A.W. Unru, Kate Lyn Sheil, Henry Ian Cusick, Anthony Kiedis)
World premiere. Fiction
A father-son relationship is put to the test when an up-and-coming rapper at the crossroads of his career decides to let go of his manager, who is also his father. This decision forces them to confront the past and figure out what they want of each other.
Judy Blume Forever
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Davina Pardo, Leah Wolchok)
World premiere. Documentary
The radical honesty of the books by young adult fiction pioneer Judy Blume changed the way millions of readers understood themselves, their sexuality, and what it meant to grow up, but also led to critical battles against book banning and censorship.
Landscape With Invisible Hand
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Cory Finley; Stars: Tiffany Haddish, Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers, Josh Hamilton, Michael Gandolfini, William Jackson Harper.)
World premiere. Fiction
When Earth is taken over by aliens who control the economy, a pair of teenagers come up with a plan to save their family.
A Little Prayer
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Angus MacLachlan; Writer: Angus MacLachlan; Stars: David Strathairn, Jane Levy, Celia Weston, Will Pullen, Anna Camp, Dascha Polanco)
World premiere. Fiction
In the South, a man tests the limits of patriarchal interference to protect his daughter-in-law when he discovers that his son is having an affair.
Murder In Big Horn
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Razelle Benally, Matthew Galkin)
World premiere. Documentary
The deaths of a group of Native American women in rural Montana are the focus as Native families, journalists, and local law enforcement reveal a violent crisis set in motion almost 200 years ago.
Drift and Cat Person
Passages
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Ira Sachs; Writer: Mauricio Zacharias; Stars: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos)
A married man cheats on his husband with a woman... then tells him about it.
World premiere. Fiction
Past Lives
(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Celine Song; Writer: Celine Song; Stars: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro)
Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends, are separated from each other when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York where Nora now lives with her American husband.
World premiere. Fiction
Plan C
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Tracy Droz Tragos)
A hidden grassroots organisation doggedly fights to expand access to abortion pills across the United States keeping hope alive during a global pandemic and the fall of Roe v Wade.
World premiere. Documentary
The Pod Generation
(Country: Belgium, France, UK; Year: 2023; Director: Sophie Barthes; Writer: Sophie Barthes; Stars: Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rosalie Craig, Vinette Robinson, Jean-Marc Barr)
In a not-so-distant future, amid a society madly in love with technology, tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share their pregnancies via detachable artificial wombs or pods. And so begins Rachel and Alvy's wild ride to parenthood in this brave new world.
World premiere. Fiction. Day One
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Lana Wilson)
World premiere. Documentary
A look at actor, model, and icon Brooke Shields as she transforms from sexualised young girl to a woman discovering her power. Holding a mirror up to a society that objectifies women and girls, her story shows the perils and triumphs of gaining agency in a hostile world.
Deep Rising and Plan C
Radical
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Christopher Zalla; Writer: Christopher Zalla; Stars: Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Haddad, Jenifer Trejo, Mia Fernanda Solis, Danilo Guardiola)
In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries a radical new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential… and maybe even their genius. Based on a true story.
World premiere. Fiction. Day One
Rotting In The Sun
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Sebastian Silva; Writer: Pedro Peirano; Stars: Jordan Firstman, Catalina Saavedra, Sebastian Silva)
World premiere. Fiction
After filmmaker Sebastian Silva goes missing in Mexico City, social media celebrity Jordan Firstman begins searching for him, suspecting that the cleaning lady in Sebastian’s building may have something to do with his disappearance.
Rye Lane
(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Raine Allen-Miller; Writer: Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia; Stars: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah)
Two twenty-somethings reeling from bad break-ups deal with their nightmare exes and connect over the course of an eventful day in south London.
World premiere. Fiction
Still: A Michael J Fox Movie
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Davis Guggenheim)
The improbable tale of a short kid from a Canadian army base who became the darling of 1980s Hollywood — only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?
World premiere. Documentary
You Hurt My Feelings
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Nicole Holofcener; Writer: Nicole Holofcener; Stars: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Owen Teague, Arian Moayed)
World premiere. Fiction
A novelist's longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
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