“Out of old tales, we must make new lives,” the great literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun once wrote. For London audiences still feeling weary after World War II, the Cinderella fairy tale took on a spectacular new life in the ballet choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton to the music of Sergei Prokofiev. Seventy-seven years later, Ballet … Read more
A splendid portrait of the first American woman and the youngest American astronaut to travel into space, SALLY, which premiered at Sundance, excels at weaving the public and private dimensions of Sally Ride’s life together into an engrossing narrative. Directed by Cristina Costantini and representing her third documentary to receive its premiere at Sundance in … Read more
The 2023 National Geographic documentary The Mission, directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, captured the story of John Chau, 26, an Oral Roberts University graduate and evangelical missionary who was killed in 2018 by arrows when he attempted to make contact with one of the most isolated Indigenous peoples, on remote North Sentinel Island … Read more
This year’s Sundance slate included short film programs, including focused tracks in animation, documentary and midnight-appropriate stories. The slate is filled with outstanding examples of the short film category, from around the world. The 57 shorts were selected from 11,153 submissions this year. The Utah Review presents 12 that were standouts in a superlative lineup. … Read more
One of the Sundance Film Festival’s greatest impacts has been as a prominent venue in the Western world to shine the light of humanity on documentaries and narrative features from places where erasure, suppression and oppression are pernicious. Palestinians have recently suffered the worst imaginable human injustices, who have been pushed to the brink of … Read more
Shortly after they were inaugurated as Colorado’s poet laureate in 2023. Andrea Gibson explained in their Substack Things that Don’t Suck their response to their own question: “How can I accept a two year position when I cannot promise I will live two years?” Gibson wrote, “But no one can promise that, friends. I’ve been … Read more
An outstanding comprehensive documentary portrait which has premiered at Sundance, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, directed by Shoshannah Stern, offers a magnificent volume of details about the personal and family life, milestones and activism of the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award (in 1987) and who became the center of national attention at … Read more
Scandinavian Arctic culture receives some of the most memorable poetic and musical cinematic treatment to be found in this year’s Sundance slate, with the premiere of FOLKTALES, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. It is not surprising that this documentary has become quite the darling at Sundance. The film knits together stunning imagery of … Read more
There are far too numerous erroneous and misrepresentative reports in the Western media about China, its people and contemporary cultural underpinnings. But, this week’s Sundance premiere of The Dating Game by Violet Du Feng is refreshing and razor-sharp for how it informs a realistic perspective about today’s Chinese society, from the vantage of courtship in … Read more
The character of the father in Omaha, a drama set during the Great Recession of 2008, is much like many during that time who struggled against numerous obstacles, swallowed their pride, and made great sacrifices for their children. For those grieving after a family tragedy, when the recession’s devastating economic storm hit with little or … Read more