And still more outstanding Sundance films…
The Friend’s House is Here
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States/Iran (Islamic Republic of). In Persian
With so much unrest in the world and the current horrors being perpetrated by the Iranian regime, it’s especially bracing to see a film that honors the importance of artistic freedom by blurring the lines between life and art. Writer-directors Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz have created a cinematic performance art mosaic with their debut feature, The Friend’s House is Here.
Covertly filmed last summer of the streets of Tehran with a valiant NY-based team, the film follows two female artists, Pari (Mahshad Bahraminejad), an underground theatre director and performer and her bestie, Hanna (Hana Mana), an improv dancer. Pari’s work, while avant garde, often exposes how the current political situation has caused anxiety and tumult in everyday Iranian life. Hanna is more a free spirit who illegally dances around monuments. Her dream is to emigrate to Paris, and she has been saving money to do just that. But when Pari is threatened by an official and then arrested, Hanna must do what she can to help her friend—even if it means giving up her chance to leave Iran.
The film’s startling and beguiling blend of the real and theatrical owes a great deal to the work of the DP, Ali Ehsani, as well as the production design and costume teams–and the keen editing by co-director Keshavarz.
The filmmakers were inspired to create this work by true stories of friends and fellow artists. But it is not a polemic, it’s a celebration of passionate creatives who refuse to be silenced and let fear lead them.
In real-life, Mana, a stunning onscreen presence, is a social media superstar in Iran so her taking part in this film is especially dangerous. She, and the cast and crew, are true heroes. We may soon need to take a page from them in the U.S.
Union County
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States. In English
Writer-director Adam Meeks isn’t breaking any new ground with the premise of his first feature, Union County. We’ve seen many recovery films before, and they usually follow the same pattern. But Meeks does something different with it. Instead of simply showing us the addict’s ‘will he/she or won’t he/she relapse story,’ he focuses on both the addict’s journey — a slow and difficult process — as well as how the recovery program employees do their part to be there for them, care for them.
Meeks also has the added boon of the incredibly underrated actor Will Poulter anchoring the film with a thoughtful, moving, understated turn that ripples with complexities.
Poulter plays Cody Parsons, a young man, living in rural Ohio, who’s been hooked on opioids since he was 17. He’s now been assigned to a county-mandated drug program. Cody is living out of his car until he can get a space at a homeless shelter. Also in the program is his younger brother, Jack (an unrecognizable Noah Centineo), who owes his addiction to Cody. Noah is more of a gregarious loose-cannon, so it becomes increasingly difficult for them to stay clean.
The project began life as a short film and works best when the focus remains on Cody and his enigmatic odyssey towards not just his struggles with recovery, but his beginning to feel some hope despite the bleak world around him. Too often, our society (and our current leaders in particular) demand some kind of quick fix—or we simply discard people, never giving a damn what led them down whatever crap hole they fell into.
Union County shows that there are still people out there that do give a damn. The movie was filmed in collaboration with the participants of the 2025 Adult Recovery Court in Bellefontaine, Ohio including Annette Deao, a counselor who basically plays herself and does a wonderful job.
One In A Million
World Cinema Documentary Competition, United Kingdom. In Arabic, German.
Filmed over a 10-year-period (Boyhood-style sort of), One in a Million is an intimate look at one young girl’s arduous journey escaping war-torn Syria, with her family, enroute to Germany. Then, returning a decade later, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to decide if she will again make Syria her home.
Through interviews and key footage of the family’s eventful odyssey, co-directors/spouses Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnesone have crafted a personal look at the refugee experience as well as one girl’s coming-of-age in a foreign land.
And because of the film’s sensitivity and specificity, the story feels universal.
When Isra’a begins her journey, she is quite close to her dad, but as the years go on and she begins to assimilate into German culture in Cologne, dad becomes angry and abusive–so much so that Isra’a’s mother kicks him out. The film delves into the complexities of old-world customs and traditions vs. modern ways of thinking and living. Isra’a goes through her own transformation and where she ends up is quite surprising.
But the true heart and soul of this film is Nisreen, Isra’a’s mother, who wasn’t allowed to go to school and was forced to marry a man she didn’t know and never truly loved. She had the courage to stand up to him and leave an abusive marriage. She educated herself and began her life anew. And when asked if she ever wanted to return to Syria, her answer was a defiant, “No!” “I was invisible now I’m visible,” she states. My only complaint about One in a Million is that it wasn’t titled Two in a Million and the focus wasn’t shared between Isra’a and film’s true heroine, her mother, Nisreen.
Azzam & MacInnes won the Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary category.
Lady
World Cinema Dramatic Competition, United Kingdom/Nigeria. In English, Nigerian Pidgin.
Olive Nwosu’s pulse-pounding debut feature Lady, takes us on a voyage to the colorful African metropolis of Lagos, Nigeria, via the titular character (a fierce Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah), a young, independent cab driver who dreams of escaping to the coastal city of Freetown in Sierra Leone—quite a trek—but she’s been saving for it. When an old friend returns to town, she agrees to drive her and her band of glamorous sex workers around, not realizing the messy danger involved. All of this is against the backdrop of social strife—Nigerian leaders have eliminated subsidies for its citizens who can barely afford to eat.
Tension builds to a shocking climax where Lady must make an important decision, whether to sacrifice her dream in order to save a friend.
Nwosu is an exciting filmmaker, imbuing her story with past trauma but also showing the female characters, especially Lady, as survivors who refuse to be defined by the intergenerational misogyny and damage inherent in the culture.
Ujah’s intense work is the film’s beating heart.
Run Amok
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States. In English.
There were two subversive high-school-play-centered films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Giselle Bonilla’s The Musical and NB Mager’s Run Amok. The former had its plusses—mostly Rob Lowe’s funny turn —but it’s the latter that proved far more complex and ambitious, despite a disappointing, cop-out ending.
The film dives into the aftermath of a school shooting in a very original manner and centers on Meg (terrific newcomer Alyssa Emily Marvin), a geeky young student who lost her mother, ten years earlier, in a school shooting that also claimed the lives of three kids, at the high school she currently attends. The principal and staff are planning a commemoration and encouraged by her music teacher-mentor and the town hero Mr. Shelby (Patrick Wilson, always fascinating and forever young), Meg goes about planning her own bizarre musical theater tribute. But she runs into obstacles when the powers-that-be don’t appreciate work that isn’t uplifting. Mr. Shelby ostensibly supports Meg, until he becomes aware of her bold vision.
One of the standout sequences involves Meg taking her classmates/actors through a harsh reenactment of exactly what took place in the hallway on the fateful day of the shooting. It’s a stunning scene—one that speaks volumes —I wish this kind of intensity and intelligence was brought to the finale.
Also, I appreciated the strange but believable interaction between Meg and the shooters mother (a wonderful Elizabeth Marvel).
Mager is rather daring in her exploration of the desire for catharsis, and just how different that search is for each individual.
And here, like with The Friend’s House is Here, we have another film about artists (this time budding ones) who fight for their right to express themselves. Bravo!
