The Sundance Film Festival begins later this week and N and I have tickets to some shows! It's a fun thing that we try to make time for every year. This year we're going to see 10 films (in 4 days, gulp.)
Our ticket package was limited to showings in Salt Lake City and N's work schedule/our babysitters' availability limited us to movies on Fridays/Saturdays so our choice of films was somewhat constrained. There were things we wanted to see but couldn't find a convenient showing of which was a bit of a bummer. But I'm looking forward to seeing some movies that I normally wouldn't have the chance to see and spending a few days hanging out with N. Here is what we're seeing this Friday and Saturday.
**The summaries are taken from the Sundance Festival Program.**
What Happened, Miss Simone?
A classically trained musical genius, chart-topping chanteuse, and Black Power icon, Nina Simone is one of the most influential, beloved, provocative, and least understood artists of our time. On stage, she was known for utterly free, rapturous performances, earning her the epithet "High Priestess of Soul." But amid the violent, day-to-day fight for civil rights, she struggled to reconcile artistic ambition with her fierce devotion to a movement. Director Liz Garbus sensitively explores the constant state of opposition that trapped and tortured Simone—as a classical pianist pigeonholed in jazz, as a professional boxed in by family life, as a black woman in racist America—and in so doing, reveals a towering figure transcending categorization and her times. The film stays true to Simone's subjectivity by mining never-before-heard tapes, rare archival footage, and interviews with close friends and family. Charting Simone’s musical inventiveness alongside the arc of her Jim Crow childhood, defining role in the Civil Rights Movement, arrival at Carnegie Hall, self-imposed exile in Liberia, and solitary life in France, this astonishingly intimate yet epic portrait becomes a non-fiction musical—lush tracks and riveting story resonating inextricably. —C.L.
The Bronze
In 2004, Hope Ann Greggory became an American hero after winning the bronze medal for the women's gymnastics team. Today, she's living in her father's basement in her small hometown—washed up, largely forgotten, and embittered. Stuck in her past glory, Hope is forced to reassess her life when a promising young gymnast who idolizes her threatens her local celebrity status. Will she mentor the adoring, hopeful protégé, take her down, or both?