EDITOR’S NOTE: Sundance’s elite short film slate is highlighted. Les Roka’s reviews five short films from various offerings while Thomas Dugrosprez reviews this year’s Animation Short Program. The following five films from this year’s Sundance Short Film program stand out for their distinction and impact, as part of The Utah Review’s coverage of the 2023 … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Reviews of The Persian Version and Joonam were written by Les Roka and Shayda was penned by Thomas Dugrosprez. Three films by directors representing the Iranian diaspora premiered at Sundance and while each approached their subjects in different ways, the collective set offers a rich, comprehensive portrait of Iranian women as strong-willed independent … Read more
At one point in Food and Country, a documentary that truly puts agricultural economics and the impact on our nation’s food production system into a clear perspective, journalist and food writer Ruth Reichl sums up the precarious situation precisely. She mentions that it feels like a “terrible failure” because the problems were already being talked … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thomas Dugrosprez wrote the reviews and Les Roka added interview and background notes to the feature. This year’s trio of Sundance Kids selections have something for virtually every young cinematic fan. In addition to the superb animation film The Amazing Maurice, which was reviewed earlier this week, there is the Utah filmed narrative … Read more
In the middle of the magnificently acted Radical, which received its premiere at Sundance, one narrative scene encapsulates all of the formidable barriers to meaningful education in a sixth-grade classroom at José Urbina López Primary School in the border town of Matamoros in Mexico. Alarmed by reports of the sixth grade teacher’s radical approach in … Read more
Mariachi might be Mexico’s most familiar music to global tourists, In Mexico, though, it is a highly prized musical craft, with many stylistic influences that have been incorporated and which have greatly expanded its originating roots in the country’s ranches and rural communities. The musical art’s merit has been amplified in Texas, where more than … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thomas Dugrosprez wrote the review and Les Roka added interview and background notes to the feature. As the U.S. faced the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, the role of health care and reproductive rights workers and activists became instantly criminalized, in a country where 1 out of 4 women … Read more
Pianoforte, the documentary directed by Jakub Piątek about the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, is a marvelous backstage look at the young pianists that builds nicely to a riveting climax, where twelve musicians compete in the finals. For an individual who has had no formal music training and connected later in life with classical … Read more
“In lucha libre, the truly important matches, the bouts that make up one’s official record, are not even world championships,” William Finnegan wrote in a 2014 feature for The New Yorker magazine about Saúl Armendáriz, a gay wrestler who revamped the role of the exótico luchadores as Cassandro. “They are, rather, Mask vs. Mask matches, … Read more
Some of the most impactful moments in the documentary, It’s Only Life After All, a comprehensive retrospective on Atlanta-based singer-songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers who continue to perform as the Indigo Girls, appear in the first third of the film. The documentary received its Sundance premiere late last week. There are numerous fascinating clips … Read more