 sundance film festival unveils 2019 features lineup sundance film festival unveils 2019 features lineup sundance film festival unveils 2019 features lineup ffproadmin thu 11292018 1500 https pmcvarietyfileswordpresscom 201811 bundyjpg w 1000 h 562 crop 1 it s not even december and the sundance film festival has announced more or less its entire feature film lineup unveiling 112 films to be screened in park city utah over the course of the event which runs from jan 23 feb 2 2019 last year the venice film festival invited just one woman director to screen her film in competition cannes carved out room for three sundance once again puts these maledominated showcases to shame unveiling a competition slate that is 53 female nine of the 17 directors eligible for the festival s top prize are women examining the lineup as a whole 45 of the 112 features accepted to sundance were directed by one or more women 40 were directed by a filmmaker of color and 15 by people who identify as lgbtqia that s just one of the many ways in which north america s leading independent film festival continues to lead the charge when it comes to the inclusion and encouragement of underrepresented voices we re always going for parity but because of the way we program we re looking for the films before we are who made them so that kind of comes in the finetuning of the program and it s always amazing when it comes out that way said kim yutani  who was promoted to director of programming for this edition following trevor groth s exit this year it was completely organic different people are telling stories and i think that is indicative of the time we are living in right now  related gucci how eighth grade got their catch phrase arrow nabs lords of chaos for uk black metal movie set for early 2019 us release exclusive   when asked why sundance fares so much better than venice in this regard festival director john cooper jokes you would have to ask venice explaining that auteurdriven festivals those who program films by more established directorial voices reflect the historic barriers to entry for women at sundance we are all about discovery the venice competition rarely includes firsttime filmmakers so with that alone you re getting into different percentages as you go back in years worth noting the lone woman director in venice s competition was australian helmer jennifer kent  whose debut feature the babadook premiered at sundance in 2014 her new movie the nightingale will have its north american premiere in sundance s spotlight section more significant still 45 of the features screening in park city were made by firsttime directors there s more new faces cooper said predicting i think it s going to be vital to the culture and more exhilarating in the discovery in order to make sense of those figures sundance also shares the statistics behind the films that were submitted whereas toronto which boasted 35 women directors in 2018 does not divulge information on the films it rejects sundance received a record high number of submissions this year 4018 featurelength films among an overall pool of 14259 which includes shorts episodic and lesstraditional work among the features received the majority 2251 were international 35 were directed by one or more women 45 directed by filmmakers of color and 13 by people who identify as lgbtqia indicating that the selections reflect the distribution of filmmakers submitting fairly closely with a slightly higher percentage of women accepted one thing the numbers don t tell and which audiences critics and the industry will have to discover for themselves when they see the lineup in january is the more nuanced sense of how this year s stories differ from those sundance has spotlighted before according to yutani that s the direct result of changes to the programming team with the goal being to assemble a team of people who have different perspectives she said we all have different things that we gravitate to or look for in films and that s what brings our program to a really interesting place if you go down each of the sections there are so many different kinds of voices and that reflects who is choosing the films in the us dramatic competition audiences will find women directors telling men s stories as in alma har el s honey boy being shia labeouf  s unclearhowautobiographical tale of a child actor s strained relationship with his father a role shia plays himself and male directors telling female stories such as body image dramedy brittany runs a marathon or gook director justin chon s second feature ms purple many of the competition stories feature nonwhite protagonists from modernday richard wright adaptation native son to julius onah s luce about a white couple who adopt a former african child soldier blockers scenestealer geraldine viswanathan stars in minhal baig s muslimamerican comingofager hala while mixedrace newcomer rhianne barreto carries pippa bianco s topical share one of three a24 releases in competition this one about a cheerleader troubled by a video that goes viral after a party where she blacked out according to cooper the common thread in this year s lineup is the whole notion of empowerment of rising to the challenge and the role truth plays in that although most of this year s selections aren t overtly political apart from such clear exceptions as petra costa s untitled brazilian impeachment doc matt tyrnauer s where s my roy cohn and grassroots election doc knock down the house cooper identified a recurring theme of overcoming disenfranchisement and outsiders immigrants finding their voices i think maybe that s a reaction to the time we live in a time when you feel a little powerless or overburdened by what going on in the world he said one other trend that yutani wanted to accentuate was the payoff to a slowbutsteady effort to attract strong international films for the festival s global competition categories something yutani described as a personal goal since she started as a features programmer at sundance 10 years ago we ve really achieved something special this year she said it s a combination of filmmakers who are known on the international film festival circuit people like joanna hogg and gabriel mascaro and johannes nyholm but also films that are pure discovery like our day one film the last tree so while quality is any festival s first concern to some extent inclusion is a deliberate initiative at sundance that s especially true at the level of the nonprofit sundance institute which operates the festival and whose yearround programs filmmaker labs fellowships and mentorship programs are designed to encourage female youth and native storytellers still when it comes to selecting films to screen in park city the festival has a different challenge from studios producers and the parties that greenlight movies in the first place we only show the films that were made cooper said we re not making films or telling people how to put together their teams and if there appear to be a disproportionate number of hbo or netflixproduced films in this year s lineup a bynowstandard criticism cooper explained that it s essentially a testament to those companies policies of supporting visionary films from diverse voices we re curators we help films find audiences but we re only as good as what is submitted he said source variety festival tag sundance film festival 