News

Many of the most important queer films in cinema history share a birthplace: the Sundance Film Festival. Organized by the Sundance Institute, the legendary annual fest in Park City, Utah, has boasted international and U.S. premiere titles as varied as the groundbreaking New York ballroom documentary Paris Is Burning in 1991, Donna Deitch’s 1985 lesbian road drama Desert Hearts or even recent masterworks like Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 adaptation of Call Me by Your Name.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Kim Yutani, director of programming at Sundance, about some of the most important Lgbtqia+ films to debut there.

“Seeing the films that Sundance has programmed over the years, especially around the early 1990s with the New Queer Wave, that was what attracted me to Sundance,” says Yutani, who’s been working with the festival for 17 years, and has also worked in various positions within the film industry, like as Gregg Araki...

I first met Ryan Murphy on location in Hollywood in July. The set was a nightclub, filled with background actors staged as glistening go-go dancers, shirtless revelers, and twirling drag queens. They were all basking under the glow of a spinning disco ball — a fitting setting for my first Hollywood job interview.

I was flown in from New York City to meet with television’s most prolific showrunner, who was directing the pilot of “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” The day’s shoot concentrated on reconstructing a moment when the late Italian designer meets the man who will ultimately end his life. Our own meet-cute began (less tragically) between takes. Murphy greeted me with a double from Starbucks in one hand and his other extended. “I am working on a new show which will tell the story of 1980s New York City through characters in two worlds...

It’s a film starring Sundance Film Fest creator Robert Redford and another film starring Sundance mainstay James Franco that are the latest and last items to officially pad the 2015 edition. Ken Kwapis’ A Walk in the Woods (surely to be discussed as a companion piece to Gus Van Sant’s heavy Cannes contender The Sea of Trees) and Rupert Goold’s directorial debut, True Story – a story that is stranger than fiction close out the Premieres selections. Also announced we find items for New Frontier, Sundance Kids and the From the Collection items. And while the line-up is complete, the actual final piece to the puzzle might actually be a secret screening or two. This year I wager on Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups playing as a non official showing. Here’s the press release.

A Walk in the Woods / U.S.A. (Director: Ken Kwapis, Screenwriters: Rick Kerb,...

Sundance: Robert Redford stars opposite Nick Nolte in Salt Lake City gala

Festival top brass announced on December 15 a volley of 10 additional films and New Frontier installations.

The late arrivals mean the festival will screen 123 features overall from 29 countries culled from 12,166 submissions. A total of 106 of the features will be world premieres and 45 of the total line-up hail from first-time film-makers,

Sundance is set to run from January 22-February 1.

All synopses provided by the festival.

Premieres

A Walk In The Woods (USA)

Ken Kwapis

An aging travel writer sets out to hike the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail with a long-estranged high school buddy. Along the way, the duo face off with each other, nature, and an eccentric assortment of characters. Together, they learn that some roads are better left untraveled.

Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman, Kristen Schaal.

World premiere

Salt Lake City Gala Film

True Story (USA)

Rupert Goold

When disgraced New York...