Go Into The Story at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival: January 31

Notes and reflections from Park City, Utah.

I am part of a group from the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts participating in the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. You can read about our Day One, Day Two, and Day Three experience here, here, and here.

The day began with a Windrider Forum Q&A interview and discussion with Lulu Wang, writer-director of the wonderful family comedy The Farewell.

Some observations from Wang:

“You have to tell the truth, that is the moral compass. In China, it’s okay to tell a good lie on behalf of the family. Family trumps the truth at certain times.”

“America values individualism. But what if you come from a culture where one’s life does not belong to oneself, but to a larger community. Those are the two sides of the immigrant’s story, torn between these two dynamics.”

As I noted in the Day Two post, I was totally swept up in the movie The Farewell, likely my favorite film of this year’s Festival. Start talking it up now, folks, and let’s generate some buzz about it to ensure strong box office.

Next, it was off to three movies including the only documentary I had selected to see. First up, Hala at the Eccles Theater. Plot: Pakistani-American Muslim teenager Hala copes with the unraveling of her family as she comes into her own. I had a special interest in this project because its writer-director is Minhail Baig. Minnie was selected to be a writer participant in the very first Black List Feature Writers Lab in 2013 for which I was a mentor and workshop facilitator. I was struck not only by her talent, but the seriousness with which she approached the craft and her emerging voice.

In 2015, Minnie created a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of a short film version of Hala. To support her, I did a Go Into The Story interview with Minnie, then promoted via other social media. At the time, she shared her vision for the short film project:

“My hope for ‘Hala’ is simple. I want to tell a personal story as authentically as possible. I want to take emotional risks and dig deeply. I want ‘Hala’ to be a visually aggressive experience: a burst of feeling, full of rich color and texture. This film is a subjective, intimate portrait of a girl becoming a woman.”

Plus this: She wanted to use the short film to generate interest and funding to make a feature length version of the story.

It worked! It was an amazing experience to see Minnie’s story unfold on the screen in the Eccles Theater as part of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Here is some video of Minhail Baig along with cast and crew members when the movie premiered earlier in the Festival:

And here is an L.A. Times Live session at the Festival:

In exciting news, Apple picked up the global distribution rights to Hala. So excited for Minnie on the success of her filmmaking debut and I look forward to her continued growth as a cinematic storyteller.

Next up, an amazing documentary: Midnight Traveler. Plot: When the Taliban puts a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee with his wife and two young daughters. Capturing their uncertain journey, Fazili shows firsthand the dangers facing refugees seeking asylum and the love shared between a family on the run.

Here is a video of Fazili discussing the documentary and his family’s three-year plight as refugees:

At the post-screening Q&A, the doc’s writer and chief editor Emelie Coleman Mahdavian talked about the complex process in producing the movie: Hassan and his family used three iPhones to document their harrowing experience as they sought — and continue to seek — asylum. They stored their footage on SIM cards, transferred to hard drives, which were given to intermediaries who would in turn get the content to Emelie. She would review the footage — over 300 hours of material — produced a rough cut, scene by scene, which would then get smuggled into Hassan and his wife (also a filmmaker) for their editorial comments.

Currently, the Fazili family is stranded in no-man’s land in Germany. Their initial request for asylum has been rejected. They have reapplied and await disposition of their case. The documentary will air domestically on the PBS ‘POV’ series. Look for it to gain a deeper appreciation for what it means to be a refugee in the modern era.

My final movie on Day Four was The Mustang, written by Mona Fastvold Brock, Norman Brock, and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Plot: Tells the story of Roman Coleman, a violent convict, who is given the chance to participate in a rehabilitation therapy program involving the training of wild mustangs.

Screening at the Eccles Theater, the movie stars Matthias Schoenaerts in the lead role of Roman Coleman, an angry loner. Thus, it’s a perfect pairing of ‘strange sojourners’ when he is given the responsibility of breaking and training a mustang — the wildest of the bunch — he comes to name Marcus. Bruce Dern plays Myles who runs the horse-training / prisoner program and is compelling as the ornery old wise man, but it is Schoenaerts whose personal journey inward engendered by his external journey with Marcus which commands the most attention. Indeed, I wish there had much more screen time of man-and-horse as their bond by the end of the movie felt like it could have been more earned. Still, it’s a powerful story of redemption and the power of connection.

Focus Features has worldwide distribution rights with a tentative North America release date of March 15.

One more day with three final movies, each of which I’m excited to see: Imaginary Order, Ms. Purple, and Blinded by the Light.

Twitter: @depaulcinema, @sundancefest.