Nicole Beharie is "Miss Juneteenth"

Murtada Elfadl reporting from Sundance..

Beauty pageant films are a genre into themselves used to tell many different stories. As when a filmmaker wants to tell a heartwarming story about female ambition (Miss Firecracker) or a satire about striving for perfection (Drop Dead Gorgeous). Sometimes they even debut at Sundance (Little Miss Sunshine). The latest in this tradition is Writer/Director Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth which focuses on mother-daughter beauty pageant contestants. However i don't think we've seen one as Black or as enmenshed in specific traditions as this one.

Nicole Beharie (Shame, 42, and TV's Sleepy Hollow) stars as Turquoise Joines. She was once Miss Juneteenth, a title commemorating the day slaves in Texas were freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. As every character in the film keeps telling her constantly -- how rude -- she has not lived up to the promise of her teen years...

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Sundance: Benh Zeitlin returns with "Wendy"

by  Abe Fried-Tanzer

Eight years ago, director Benh Zeitlin, just twenty-nine at the time, brought his debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild to Sundance, where it took home the Grand Jury Dramatic Prize. It went on to score four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and a bid for directing for Zeitlin. Since then, he has produced a few projects, but now marks the much-anticipated release of his second effort behind the camera.

Wendy is a creative retelling of the Peter Pan story, with Wendy (Devin France) and her twin brothers (Gage and Gavin Naquin) helping their single mother at the diner where she works and watching excitedly as trains go by their windows every night...

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Toni Collette is winning in "Dream Horse"

Abe Fried-Tanzer reporting from Sundance...

Toni Collette is an incredibly versatile actress. In just the last two years, she has enthralled indie horror fans in Hereditary, hilariously parodied GOOP excess in Knives Out, and impressed Netflix viewers with her tremendous turn as a no-nonsense cop in Unbelievable. In comparison, her latest turn as a Welsh bartender with big dreams, may seem tame or even unchallenging. Yet Collette is always up to the task and prepared to deliver... 

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Ai Weiwei's "Vivos" - Pretty to look at but too detached

New contributor Ren Jender reporting from Sundance...

 

In 2014, Mexican police attacked students from a rural teachers' college, Ayotzinapa (known as a hotbed of leftist activism) in Iguala, Guerrero. They killed six of the students but injured many more and abducted another 43, who have never been found. In his new documentary Vivos, artist Ai WeiWei (Human Flow) focuses on the families left behind (and in limbo) When the families speak about the disappearance of their sons, siblings and partners, Ai captures the lyricism of their stories. One father memorably states:

That night, it rained and rained and rained."

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"Zola" has to be seen to be believed.

Murtada Elfadl reporting from Sundance

Maybe it was the 10th time director Janicza Bravo used a freeze frame to reframe the wild weekend tale she’s telling in Zola, when I knew I loved her movie. The freeze frames until then were used to stop the narrative for a pithy or funny observation by our narrator Zola (Taylour Paige), twitter reply style. But this time we were getting a whole new perspective from another character. It was delectable, hilarious and ghastly. I’d say the same for Zola. 

You all remember the infamous 2015 Twitter thread that started with the classic opening lines: 

Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense?”

Well they went and made a movie out of it...

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