For the final time, the Sundance Film Festival emanated from the snowy peaks of Park City, Utah, its home since 1981. Starting in 2027, the festival will relocate to Boulder, Colorado, a move that has split long-time attendees. However, one thing everyone agreed on was the strength of this year’s slate. With competitive offerings across the Spotlight, Midnight, Premieres, and Documentary sections, there was truly something for every film lover.
When A Witness Recants
I opened my festival with director Dawn Porter’s documentary When A Witness Recants. The film follows three Black teenagers from Baltimore who were wrongfully accused of murdering a classmate in 1983. It took 36 years before Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins were finally exonerated and released. Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a pseudo-narration, reflecting on his own upbringing in the area at the time of the crime.
What unfolds is a harrowing look at systemic corruption, coerced child witnesses, and a judicial system uninterested in the truth. This film should make you angry. By focusing on the three decades stolen from these men, it forces the audience to question how much we have truly evolved as a society. While the story is undeniably powerful, the pacing occasionally drags, which saps some of the film’s emotional momentum.
Broken English
The Ministry of Not Forgetting reminds us that remembering isn’t enough; we must also refuse to forget. Their first subject: the legendary Marianne Faithfull. This “faux-documentary” is a clever, unique meta-tribute to Faithfull’s life and times. Tilda Swinton stars as the leader of the Ministry, while George MacKay portrays the interviewer tasked with questioning Marianne about her storied past.
Through a blend of archival footage and raw, unedited interviews, we get the real story from Marianne herself. She was a model, musician, mother, actress, addict, and feminist—a bit of everything in between. Told with immense heart, the film is made more poignant by the fact that Marianne passed away before its completion. We are treated to her final performance alongside longtime friends Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, a moment that will surely bring you to tears. Directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard have found a refreshing new approach to the musical documentary, but the real star remains Marianne.
Tuner
The “nice guy down on his luck turns to crime while meeting the love of his life” trope is well-worn, but Tuner hits all the right notes (pun intended). Leo Woodall plays Niki, a piano tuner whose unique hearing condition also happens to make him an elite safecracker. As Niki falls deeper into the underworld, he falls even harder for Ruthie, a piano prodigy played by Havana Rose Liu.
Director Daniel Roher cleverly uses sound design to immerse us in Niki’s sensory world, adding a visceral layer to the adventure. While the film ventures into some surprisingly dark territory, it finds levity in Dustin Hoffman, who steals every scene as Niki’s mentor, Harry Horowitz. Having generated significant buzz on the festival circuit, Tuner hits theaters this May. There are certainly worse ways to spend 109 minutes!
Buddy
Imagine it’s 1999 and Barney the Dinosaur is secretly a monster who craves the love of amnesiac children trapped inside his show. That is the wild premise of writer/director Casper Kelly’s Buddy. Buddy, a lovable orange unicorn from the fictional 90’s hit It’s Buddy!, harbors a dark secret he desperately hides from his child co-stars. If they catch on, they find themselves “magically” recast—until a girl named Hannah realizes something is deeply wrong with her televised reality.
The first half plays out as a series of surreal show episodes before shifting to a suburban home where a traumatized mother (a wonderful Cristin Milioti) senses a missing piece of her family. The juxtaposition of the bright TV world and the somber real world makes it feel like two separate films until the threads finally intertwine. This was one of my most anticipated titles of the fest, and it did not disappoint. The dark humor and self-awareness work seamlessly with the plot. By the time the credits roll, you might just find yourself singing, “Buddy, I love you!”