Everything I Watched at Sundance London 2024

Seif Elsotary

Committee, Article

This year, Sundance Film Festival London took place at Picturehouse Central in early June, and I was lucky enough to be granted press accreditation for the festival, meaning I got to watch as many films there as I could and detail my thoughts on each one.

The Sundance Film Festival: London is the UK edition of the renowned Sundance Film Festival, which takes place annually in Park City, Utah. This year, the London event was hosted by Picturehouse Central (My favourite cinema), bringing a curated selection of the best independent films from the main festival to a British audience. It showcases a range of films, from narrative features and documentaries to short films, along with panels, discussions, and special events. The festival offers a platform for filmmakers to connect with international audiences and industry professionals, continuing Sundance's legacy of championing independent cinema.

Over the 3-day film festival, I managed to watch 7 films, ranging from documentaries, to comedies, to horror, to whatever Sasquatch Sunset was. So, without further ado, here is everything I watched at Sundance London 2024, ranked from least to most favourite.

"She was recording history…"

Never Look Away is a biopic documentary that tells the story of CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, who was constantly risking her life to convey the reality of war and how it affects innocent people. The doc uses some interesting editing and music choices to reflect the New Zealand-born journalist’s fiery personality, along with interviews from various lovers and colleagues.

It’s an interesting doc where you learn quite a bit about Moth and what it’s like to be a war journalist. It’s a story about a woman whose life took a tragic turn, but ultimately never gave up, living her life the way she wanted to, and did so unapologetically.

It conveys the importance of journalism, which is incredibly important today, as so many journalists are being murdered by the IDF during their genocide against Palestinians. It’s even explored during the “Israel” segment of the doc, showing Israel shooting journalists, murdering innocent civilians, and committing war crimes, even during the 90s. So, I appreciate that message immensely, especially that segment’s inclusion.

However, director Lucy Lawless doesn’t do much to make this doc particularly compelling. All the interviews are from ex-lovers and CNN colleagues, but there aren’t any from people in the war zones that she spent so much time in. It just feels very “badass girl boss” in the most straight-forward sense, and not enough about the global issue of war and its effect on people, or the consequences of her coverage, or even news coverage in general.

Ultimately, it’s a good story that should’ve been told, but could’ve been told in a much more compelling way by dissecting who Margaret Moth truly is, warts and all, instead of it just being a puff piece about how great she is and resulting in the whole doc feeling a bit one dimensional. My least favourite film I’ve seen at Sundance London this year, unfortunately.

“Are you in there… Somewhere?"

Handling the Undead is a slow, sombre exploration of grief, the lengths you would go to bring back a loved one who is gone, and letting go of the ones who have passed.

There’s a constant eeriness behind every lengthy, slow pan and shots that overstay their welcome. The suspense is often unnerving. It’s beautifully shot, with powerful performances throughout. The score is haunting and incredibly effective. But the real standout here is the sound design.

The sound design plays a huge part here. It pretty much makes the film, and it’s kind of the only reason the whole thing works. The film’s consistent silence makes any sudden noise violently jarring and unsettling. There’s constant tension behind each deafening silence and ear-piercing screech. The repeating sirens every time anyone opens a door or window, or the sounds of flies that keep getting louder and louder, just adds to the uneasiness of it all.

Despite these technical achievements though, it’s unfortunately just a collection of a few really strong moments, held together by a thin, plain piece of string. The pacing is frustrating, and its lack of dialogue kills any interest in these characters. It’s a basic “losing a loved one is sad, and you have to move on, or it will (in this case, literally) eat you alive” and it doesn’t do… well anything with it, to be honest.

Overall, Handling the Undead's technical elements are powerful, but everything else is creatively lacklustre, making its incredibly slow pace extremely tedious very quickly

“…”

I honestly don’t even know how to review Sasquatch Sunset… My notes during this were just pages of “what”, “?????”, and “AAAAAHHHHHHHH”, mixed with questions like “What does the script even look like”, “How do you even pitch this”, and “what the fuck is even happening??”.

About halfway through, I realised I had no idea where this was going or what was even happening at that point, so I just put my notebook down and went along for the ride.

Sasquatch Sunset is pretty much just 90 minutes of famous actors in sasquatch suits, eating, pissing, shitting, fucking, and occasionally, giving birth. All while the most gorgeous score plays in the background.

0 dialogue. Just grunts.

10/10 no notes.

“What’s wrong with girls like me?”

Your Monster is a love story between an aspiring actress and her monster — think Beauty and the Beast but much, much weirder. It starts out with the disclaimer that it’s “based on a true-ish story” and I’ll be honest… I still have no idea what that means. The film won Best Film at Sundance London, and I’m happy for the cast and crew. But I personally believe a few of the other films I watched were more deserving.

Melissa Barrera, Caroline Lindy, and Kayla Foster accepting with their award at Sundance London

The film starts out strong. It immediately sets an interesting tone, mixing its distinct visual style, through warm colours and a fairy-tale look, with funky editing and catchy music. It’s a fantastic cold open and title drop that really sets the film off in a fun and interesting direction.

The first act is really great, and we get to watch the main characters have a lot of fun with their roles and bounce off of each other really well. The two leads, Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey, have great chemistry and amazing comedic chops. They give extremely fun performances, and it was always enjoyable watching them connect, hang out, bicker, etc. After the first act though… the whole thing takes a nosedive.

Your Monster is kind of a tonal mess. It starts out pretty strong and consistent, a cute romcom with a supernatural twist, but then pretty quickly it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Sometimes it’s a comedy, a romcom, a horror, a musical. At one point, I thought “Is this a soap opera now?”. It just doesn’t fully commit to a single direction, not even its weird, supernatural premise, so when it tries to go in a specific direction it just doesn’t land and isn’t that effective, and because of that, a lot of the emotional beats end up falling flat as well.

The script just really holds this film back. It’s tonally inconsistent. Pretty much everything is underdeveloped and surface level. I’m not really invested in the characters and their relationships because it’s not really explored all that well. After the first act, the film finds itself falling into basic romcom tropes, despite its initial hook with its originality. It ends up being really predictable, making the set ups fall flat because you can see what’s going to happen from a mile away. I just became completely disinterested by the third act due to the script, so the ending ends up feeling cheap and the whole “female rage” theme doesn’t hit quite well for me.

It’s a shame because every other aspect works really, really well. The direction is beautiful, the performances are a lot of fun, the music is great, the editing is amazing, the comedy works extremely well. It really is a lot of fun and enjoyable to get though. I just wish it committed to specific directions (like the music - Barrera’s voice is amazing).

It’s weird, it’s fun… but it’s a mess.

“Stories are built from language. Nations are built from stories.”

Kneecap is the (semi)fictional origin story of the real-life, Irish hip-hop trio with the same name. From the start, there’s a clear personality to it. It’s got this youthful, kinetic vibe that feels extremely authentic. It’s very funny, very energetic, very creative, and very Irish.

I enjoyed the film a lot, especially the hip-hop focus and vibrant editing. Sometimes, though, it feels like they’re trying to focus on too much. There are just too many plotlines / characters / themes that are being addressed that, by the end, some end up being more impactful than others, leaving some aspects feeling underdeveloped.

In the heart of the whole film, though, is a powerful political movement, with the goal to preserve Irish (Gaelic) and other indigenous languages and cultures.

The fusion of hip-hop and the Irish identity blends together really well — Feels very rebellious and proud — Resulting in this powerful reflection of language as a defiant form of expression, because what is more historically defiant than hip-hop? The phrase “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom” is so fitting with Irish hip-hop, the music genre with the most words-per-minute, being the backbone of the entire film.

The real-life Kneecap trio portray themselves in the film too and they’re genuinely incredible. I would’ve never even thought they were first time actors because they play their roles with such authenticity and sincerity, and really injecting their own personality into these characters. Michael Fassbender, despite his relatively small physical presence, is great as always (and was a pretty cool surprise for me as I had no idea he was even in this).

The whole film is just an authentic and creative celebration of the importance of language and, more specifically, Irish identity, made by incredibly talented people who were clearly passionate about telling this story and addressing its subject matters.

++ Bonus points for the trio publicly supporting Palestine and highlighting the similarities with the current situation (genocide) and the Irish rebellion advocating for freedom, as well as having the Palestinian flag proudly shown in the film, even if it was just for a single shot.

“There is still time.”

I Saw the TV Glow is a powerful exploration of self-identity and a heart-breaking twist on the conventional aspects of a coming-of-age story. It didn’t hit me as much as I wish it did, nonetheless, I still really enjoyed it and was incredibly affected by it.

It’s insanely well directed and visually beautiful, with some incredible writing (despite some weird pacing). It’s sinister yet liberating. Heart-breaking yet fulfilling. Jane Schoenbrun manages to embody the dread of self-realization, and makes you walk out of this film either staring at yourself in the mirror, or never wanting to see your reflection again.

The two main leads, Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, give crazy good performances. There’s one scene with Lundy-Paine’s Maddy where I audibly went “wow” by the end. They give it they’re all, and “they’re all” is extremely powerful.

I really appreciate what I Saw the TV Glow is going for. The creative team behind it are so confident in themselves and in this film, resulting in the film itself having such clear identity. From the very start, it knows what it wants to be, goes for it all the way, and does so without any hesitation. It’s unapologetically weird and blunt, and I respect that so much. This film looks at you and tells you exactly who it is, forcing you to confront who you are as well, even if you’re not ready to do that.

“I’m so proud. But sometimes, It’s a little bit hard.”

My favourite film during Sundance London. One of my favourite films of the year. Wow. Where do I even begin?

Dìdi is a charming and vibrant coming-of-age story. It’s set during the last month of summer in 2008 and revolves around Chris Wang (AKA Wang Wang) - an impressionable and awkward teen who swears a lot, has a crush, has weird friendships, acts cringe, and hasn’t figured out who he wants to be yet. So… he’s all of us.

Sean Wang’s directorial feature debut is incredibly authentic and heartfelt. Much like his Oscar nominated short, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (which should’ve won and is currently streaming on Disney+ so everyone go watch it), he injects his identity with so much heart and passion. But this time, it’s in a fun, and painfully relatable comedy about teenage adolescence.

It’s such a relatable story about growing up. It’s about figuring out who we are and who we want to be. It’s about figuring out who our friends are. It’s about figuring out what our interests are. It’s about appreciating our family and realising they’re dealing with stuff too. It’s a crushing portrayal of the desperate need to be liked and accepted as a teenager, that constantly makes you think “oh my god I’ve definitely done that before”.

The characters feel powerfully authentic and written in a way that’s real. I feel like I’ve known people just like them throughout my life. Hell, I can see versions of myself throughout my life in a lot of them. I particularly love how Wang explores Chris’ friend groups. They’re all flawed, but genuine. He brings out their negative aspects that make them seem troubled, but he also brings out their positive aspects that make them seem kind. One friend group smoke and drink, but they also scold Chris for disrespecting his mother. Another friend group disregards Chris, but they also support him in finding love (albeit in their own weird ways). None of these characters feel one-dimensional or thin. They’re all complex, and flawed, and real, and human.

Dìdi is an authentic and genuine love letter to growing up in the 2000s. It’s an honest portrayal of being a teenager, trying to figure out who you are and the people around you, and the relatability of it all hit me so hard I couldn’t even formulate my thoughts and emotions for this review until days after I’ve seen it. I seriously cannot wait to revisit this as soon as I can.

P.S. The credits revealed that director Sean Wang was actually the squeaking dead squirrel so… that’s hilarious.

Ultimately, Sundance Film Festival London 2024 delivered a diverse array of cinematic experiences that ranged from deeply emotional narratives to quirky, genre-defying films. While not every film resonated equally, the festival provided a vibrant showcase of independent filmmaking, each project reflecting unique perspectives and creative visions. The films I watched varied in impact, but they collectively highlighted the importance of independent cinema in challenging norms and presenting stories that are both personal and universally relatable. This year's festival not only entertained but also sparked reflection, making it a memorable event that celebrated the art of storytelling in all its forms.