This year’s Sundance Film Festival is full of Black star power, and we’ve compiled a list of everything you should have on your radar for entertainment.
Here are our picks for films to check out at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Judas and the Black Messiah
Illinois Black Panther party when J. Edgar Hoover fears charismatic leader Chairman, Fred Hampton, will emerge as a Black Messiah. O’Neal lives in fear of discovery and cannot escape the deadly trajectory of his betrayal. Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Lil Rel Howery, Martin Sheen. Director: Shaka King, Screenwriters: Will Berson, Shaka King, Producers: Ryan Coogler, Charles D. King, Shaka King
Passing
Two African-American women who can “pass” as White choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1929 New York in an exploration of racial and gender identity, performance, obsession, and repression. Based on the novella by Nella Larsen. Starring: Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland, Alexander Skarsgård, Bill Camp. Director and Screenwriter: Rebecca Hall. Producers: Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Margot Hand, Rebecca Hall.
Ailey
Alvin Ailey was a visionary artist who found salvation through dance. Told in his own words and through the creation of a dance inspired by his life, this immersive portrait follows a man who, when confronted by a world that refused to embrace him, determined to build one that would.
All Light, Everywhere
An exploration of the shared histories of cameras, weapons, policing, and justice. As surveillance technologies become a fixture in everyday life, the film interrogates the complexity of an objective point of view, probing the biases inherent in both human perception and the lens.
Homeroom
Following the class of 2020 at Oakland High School in a year marked by seismic change, exploring the emotional world of teenagers coming of age against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world.
Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America’s history lost – until now. Director: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.
DAY ONE
A spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar, immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf Sufi Muslims chewed for centuries for religious meditations – and Ethiopia’s most lucrative cash crop today. A tapestry of intimate stories offers a window into the dreams of youth under a repressive regime.
President
The leader of the opposition MDC party, Nelson Chamisa, challenges the old guard ZANU-PF led by Emmerson Mnangagwa, known as “The Crocodile.” The election tests both the ruling party and the opposition – how do they interpret principles of democracy in discourse and in practice?
NEXT
A re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet, taking place through their cell phones, in a mash-up of Shakespearean dialogue with current social media communication.
Director: Carey Williams, Screenwriters: Carey Williams, Rickie Castaneda, Alex Sobolev,
Producers: Timur Bekmambetov, Igor Tsay, John J. Kelly, Alex Sobolev, Anna Soboleva
Starring: Camaron Engels, Francesca Noel, David Zayas, Diego Tinoco, Siddiq Saunderson, Russell Hornsby.
My Name is Pauli Murray
Overlooked by history, Pauli Murray was a legal trailblazer whose ideas influenced RBG’s fight for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall’s landmark civil rights arguments. Featuring never-before-seen footage and audio recordings, a portrait of Murray’s impact as a non-binary Black luminary: lawyer, activist, poet, and priest who transformed our world.
Philly D.A.
A groundbreaking inside look at the long-shot election and tumultuous first term of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s unapologetic District Attorney, and his experiment to upend the criminal justice system from the inside out. (Episodic)
Night of the Kings
A young man is sent to La Maca, a prison on the Ivory Coast in the middle of the forest ruled by its prisoners. With the red moon rising, he is designated by the Boss to be the new “Roman” and must tell a story to the other prisoners.
Beyond the Breakdown
Imagining alternate narratives for our near-future reality, inside a browser designed to hack our normal online behaviors and cultivate collaborative spaces for self-reflection and renewal.
The Changing Same: Episode 1
An immersive, episodic virtual reality experience where the participant travels through time and space to witness the connected historical experiences of racial injustice in America. A respectful, haunting story infused with magical realism and Afrofuturism about the uninterrupted cycle of the 400-year history of racial terror— past and present.
Secret Garden
An immersive web experience and installation, illuminating the power and resilience in Black women’s stories. Interactive audio vignettes generate a multi-generational narrative that collapses past, present, and future.
Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler
Inspired by the ideas of Octavia Butler, voyaging into the interstitium: a liminal space, a cultural memory, containing the remnants of our ancestors, a place of refuge, a place of recentering, a portal into an alternate dimension.
Dear Philadelphia
With the help of their family, friends, and faith, three fathers unravel the incomparable partnership of forgiveness and community in North Philadelphia.
Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma
In 1970, Black educators in Chicago developed an alphabet flashcard set to provide Black-centered teaching materials to the vastly White educational landscape and the Black ABCs were born. Fifty years later, twenty-six scenes provide an update to their meanings.
The Fire Next Time
Rioting spreads as social inequality causes tempers in a struggling community to flare, but the oppressive environment takes on a life of its own as the shadows of the housing estate close in.
Five Tiger
A god-fearing woman in present-day South Africa finds herself in a transactional relationship as she tries to support her sick husband and daughter. North American
i ran from it and was still in it
A poetic meditation on familial loss and separation, and the love that endures against dispersion.
Lizard
An 8-year-old girl with an ability to sense danger gets ejected from Sunday school service. She unwittingly witnesses the underbelly in and around a megachurch in Lagos.
Up at Night
As dusk fades and another night without electricity falls, Kinshasa’s neighborhoods reveal an unstable environment of violence, political conflict, and uncertainty over the building of the Grand Inga 3 hydroelectric dam, promising a permanent source of energy to the Congo.
White Wedding
Amidst a racially tense Southern wedding, a biracial bride has the chance to confront her estranged Black father after accidentally hiring his wedding band to perform. World Premiere
Shorts
A Concerto is a Conversation
A virtuoso jazz pianist and film composer tracks his family’s lineage through his 91-year-old grandfather from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Black Bodies
A Black man laments as he comes face-to-face with the realities of being Black in the 21st century.
Bruiser
After his father gets into a fight at a bowling alley, Darious begins to investigate the limitations of his manhood.
