Not long after she arrives at the tiny Arkansas farm to stay with her family, Soonja the grandmother finds the perfect spot along a creek to plant the minari seeds she brought from South Korea. A popular bitter herb – sometimes called water celery – that is used in all sorts of South Korean dishes … Read more
When filmmaker Ryan White went to Kuala Lumpur to follow the trial of the two women charged with the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he believed that he would never be able to talk to Đoàn Thị Huong from Vietnam and Siti Aisyah from Indonesia. “It seemed … Read more
When Agnes ‘Aggie’ Gund sold the beloved Masterpiece pop-art painting (1962) created by Roy Lichtenstein that had been displayed for more than 40 years in her living room, she was sad for a moment. Sold for an astounding $165 million price to a hedge fund executive, she sensed that this painting which had given so … Read more
It is notable that a director who won the Oscar for Spotlight’s (2015) original screenplay and a veteran cartoonist with a widely syndicated comic strip have made a seamless transition to making a film that should resonate with the target audience of the Sundance Kids program. The Disney+ premiere of Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, … Read more
After the 2018 midterm elections and on the first anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s research found that “among all youth, 43% percent of 18 to 24-year-olds said that the Parkland shooting … Read more
Setting aside the pre-Sundance controversy surrounding the film, On The Record, directed and written by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, is undeniably a complete, substantial story that leads to deeper thinking about the focus on the stories of Drew Dixon and Sil Lai Abrams, who accused Russell Simmons of raping them, and the other victims … Read more
Making its Sundance premiere, Feels Good Man, directed by Arthur Jones, is a perfect documentary of multidisciplinary value. In addition to being thoroughly entertaining, it offers an outstanding case study about social media, its role in politics, the framing of cultural identities, and the global dynamics of memes along with their strategic appropriation; the implications … Read more
The town portrayed in the Sundance premiere of The Killing of Two Lovers is so small that David, who is staying at his father’s home while he and Nikki try to figure out if their marriage is salvageable, easily can see everything going on in the lives of his wife and four kids in the … Read more
The exceptional Come Away, the first feature-length live action film directed by Brenda Chapman with first-time screenwriter Marissa Kate Goodhill, has the same extraordinary depth as a masterpiece from nearly 15 years ago, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Come Away is receiving its world premiere on the Sundance Kids slate, curated by the Utah … Read more
Introducing her 1995 anthology, Bridges to Cuba / Puentes a Cuba, Cuban-American anthropologist and author Ruth Behar wrote that her collection is “a meeting place, an open space, a castle in the sand, an imaginary homeland. It is a space for reconciliation, imaginative speculation and renewal.” Receiving its Sundance premiere, the documentary Epicentro, directed by … Read more