Sundance, the largest and most prestigious film festival in the United States, was not immune to the effects of the Covid pandemic. Last year, the festival went to a hybrid model, which included both screenings online and adopting a number of satellite screening locations all over the country. Indie Memphis was one of the regional festivals that partnered with Sundance to bring the independent films produced outside of the Hollywood system, which the festival specializes in, to local audiences. The satellite screening partnerships were so successful that Sundance decided to make it a permanent part of their program, even before the Omicron variant put a damper on the usual festivities in Park City, Utah.
In a time when the film business is in a state of flux, and the fates of Sundance’s up-and-coming filmmakers looks more uncertain than ever, these partnerships represent a great opportunity for both the festivals and the audience. Indie Memphis will be one of only seven places in the United States where you can watch Sundance 2022 films in person. “We are honored to keep the theatrical element alive at Sundance this year with these Indie Memphis screenings at Crosstown, especially the screenings with Memphians involved and present,” says Indie Memphis Artistic Director Miriam Bale.
The weekend of film at Crosstown Theater kicks off on Friday, January 28th, at 6 p.m. with Sirens. In this documentary, director Rita Baghdadi profiles Slave to Sirens, the Middle East’s only all-female thrash-metal band. It is both a portrait of a pioneering cultural and musical force, and a personal, street-level look at the impact decades of political dysfunction and war have had on the once-vibrant city of Beirut.
On Saturday, January 29th, a full day of programming starts at 11 a.m. with two shorts and a feature. Every Day in Kaimuki is a product of the increasingly vibrant indie film scene in Hawaii. Director Alika Tengan tells the story of Naz, a native Hawaiian who has spent his life longing to leave for places with more opportunity. But once it looks like he’ll get his wish and move to New York with his girlfriend, he starts to feel some doubts.
One of the two shorts screening at 11 is “What Travelers Are Saying About Jornada del Muerto” by director Hope Tucker. The experimental documentary travels to New Mexico, near where the first atomic bomb was tested, to get advice on making “the journey of the dead.” Tucker is a former Memphian who now teaches at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She will be on hand for a Q&A after the film. “It’s particularly exciting to be able to have a specific local connection to these films, which will make these experiences more singular,” says Indie Memphis programmer Kayla Myers.
At 2 p.m. is Free Chol Soo Lee. The documentary is about a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who, in 1973, was wrongly accused of murder in San Francisco, and the investigative reporter who fought to clear his name. At 6 p.m. is La Guerra Civil, a documentary by actor-turned-director Eva Longoria Bastón, about the 1996 boxing match between Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez, which divided the Mexican community on both sides of the border. Then, at 9 p.m., is Emergency. The dramedy by director Carey Williams and screenwriter K.D. Dávila follows a pair of uptight Black college friends whose let-your-hair-down night of partying is thrown into crisis by the addition of an overdosed white girl, and they race to get her help while trying to avoid a confrontation with the cops.
On Sunday, Marte Um (Mars One) begins the program at 1 p.m. A film from Brazilian collective Filmes de Plástico, it dives deep into the lives of a Brazilian family on the eve of the election of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. At 5 p.m. is Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, a mockumentary with some serious star power. Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown star as pastors from an Atlanta megachurch who fell from grace following a scandal and try to return to their former glory, despite having only a handful of congregants left. The final film of the evening is Alice, a film by Krystin Ver Linden, in which an enslaved person escapes in the antebellum South, only to find that, in the world beyond the plantation, it’s actually 1973. Memphian Kenneth Farmer, who acts in the film, will provide an introduction.
You can purchase tickets for Sundance in Memphis at the Indie Memphis website. Admission is $12 per film, $10 for members, and there are discounted ticket packages available.
