A film festival in the heart of The Big Smoke (London that is) focusing on indie cinema and cool industry panels? Yes please. Read on for all you need to know, and watch.
Back in 1981, American star and filmmaker Robert Redford founded the nonprofit Sundance Institute to provide and preserve the space for artists across storytelling media so they could create and thrive. Today, the Institute features signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. It may have started small and local, but Sundance is big and global now.
One of their global collaborations is with Picturehouse — an award-winning UK film company incorporating cinema, distribution and home entertainment, formed in 1989 to challenge the multiplex model — to bring Sundance London to audiences each summer.
Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 will run from June 6-9, at the Picturehouse Central.
This year, the festival will open with open on June 6th with Rich Peppiatt’s raucous and infectious Irish-language film, Kneecap, which scooped the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award: NEXT in January in Utah. I’ve already gotten my tickets for opening night.
The festival will close on June 9th with the UK premiere of Dìdi (弟弟) written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sean Wang. Wang was recently Oscar-nominated for his documentary short Nai Nai & Wai Pó.
“Having Kneecap and Dìdi (弟弟) bookend the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 sets the stage for a rousing edition celebrating new cinema. These two debut films, by breakthrough directors Rich Peppiatt and Sean Wang, offer irresistible storytelling and bold filmmaking that resonated deeply with our audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s been an honour to welcome these filmmakers into the Sundance community. We look forward to bringing these exciting discoveries to London audiences and to sharing their energy and passion for independent cinema.”
Kneecap is a semi-fictionalized recounting of how west Belfast rap trio Kneecap was formed and it features the group themselves — Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí — along with Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender in a film that will also be released in UK cinemas in August.
The coming of age film Dìdi (弟弟) marks the feature debut of Wang and tells the story of a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy learns how to skate, flirt and love his mother. The story takes place in 2008 and after debuting at this year’s Sundance — where it won both the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble — the film was picked by Focus Features for distribution. It will be in cinemas in the US starting on July 26th of this year.
In between, there will be screenings of the doc Skywalkers: A Love Story director Jeff Zimbalist with co-director: Maria Bukhonina, featuring a Q&A with the pair along with producer Tamir Ardon. But also David and Nathan Zellner’s fictional Sasquatch Sunset, featuring Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers; and a 15-year anniversary screening of (500) Days of Summer by Marc Webb — starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel and Chloë Grace Moretz — featuring an introduction and pre-film conversation with the film’s director. To discover all the films, check out the festival’s screenings guide.
I asked Mitchell about this year’s Sundance London and she generously replied “Sundance Film Festival: London has been doing strong for 11 years and we have another great crop of films and talks lined up for four packed days at Picturehouse Central. We have the UK premieres of 11 films that premiered at Sundance in Utah in January — some of the buzziest films from that festival including Kneecap (our opening night), Didi (our closing night), I Saw The TV Glow and Skywalkers: A Love Story, plus other international award-winners like Girls Will Be Girls and Handling the Undead.”
About rediscovering gems of the past in this year’s program Mitchell said “I'm really proud of some of our repertory screenings this year as well, honoring the 40th edition of Sundance Film Festival, we have Carine Adler's Under The Skin showing on 35mm with many members of the film team in attendance; and Chiwetel Ejiofor introducing Kinky Boots. We also have Marc Webb attending for a special screening of (500) Days of Summer that will be a lot of fun.”
During the four-days long event, there will also be industry meetups, like the much-anticipated talk ‘Inside Sundance’, featuring Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming; Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming; Mike Plante, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer, Short Film; Ana Souza, Sundance Film Festival Manager, Programming Department and Programmer, and all moderated by the fantastic Wendy Mitchell, Producer, Sundance Film Festival: London.
And ‘Meet the Funders’, moderated by my fave EIC Matt Mueller, Editor in Chief of Screen International, and featuring Ama Ampadu, Senior Production and Development Executive, BFI Filmmaking Fund; Phil Hunt, founder and MD, Head Gear Films and Co-MD, Bankside Films; Luke Moody, Head of the BFI Doc Society Fund; Alice Ojha, Development Executive, BBC Film; Andrew Orr, Sky Cinema Head of Originals; and Max Park, Development and Production Executive, Film4.
I wanted to hear from Mitchell about the industry program and she replied: “Three years ago we started our industry program which has grown and evolved every year and welcomes several hundred creatives to get inspired and make real connections with industry experts -- for instance we have daily small-table brunches where one expert meets 5-6 rising talents for an hour -- three years ago Gurinder Chadha did one of these tables and later invited a young producer she met to a table reading at her house -- I love this story because it real sums up how we try to have people really meet each other in a meaningful way. Some of our experts this year are from companies and organisations including Anton Corp, BAFTA, Bankside Films, BFI, BFI London Film Festival, BIFA, BBC Film, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, Curzon Film, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Fable Pictures, Film Constellation, Film4, IMDb, The Ink Factory, Lee & Thompson, Monumental Pictures, Nowness, Protagonist, Rocket Science, Saatchi & Saatchi, Searchlight Pictures, Studiocanal, Sky, WestEnd Films, Western Edge Pictures, WME and more. Screenwriters, directors, casting directors, sound designers and other award-winning HODs will also be speaking.”
For all info on Sundance Film Festival: London 2024, check out their website.
Images used with permission of Sundance Film Festival: London 2024.