Your guide to the 2016 Sundance Film Festival
This year is set to be a bonanza at the snow-capped mountains of Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday. The fest is a paradise for independent film and a buyer’s market as studios and distributors mine the offerings for what could be next year’s Brooklyn or Boyhood. USA TODAY has your must-see guide.
1. Talker TV premieres and a virtual reality boom
The fest is known for showcasing innovative filmmakers, “but a lot of filmmakers are going back and forth,” says Trevor Groth, Sundance’s director of programming. “They’re making a film, they’re doing a series.” J.J. Abrams will unveil his James Franco-led sci-fi Hulu series 11.22.63, Starz has its sexy sexy Steven Soderbergh-produced series The Girlfriend Experience, and Amazon offers The New Yorker Presents.
This year's 30 VR experiences span Notes on Blindness, which puts audiences into the shoes of a blind person, to Giant, which plants users inside war-torn Serbia.
2. Famous faces
Behind the flannel-and-boots vibe is an electric testing ground for riskier fare. Nick Jonas plays a fraternity brother in Goat, Daniel Radcliffe embodies a corpse befriended by a stranded survivor (Paul Dano) in Swiss Army Man, and Casey Affleck returns home to care for his orphaned nephew alongside Michelle Williams in Manchester By the Sea.
3. Comedians twisting the narrative
Wyatt Cenac (Jacqueline: Argentine), Molly Shannon (Other People), Craig Robinson (Morris From America) and Maya Rudolph (Maggie's Plan) are all challenging perceptions. For Chelsea Handler's Netflix documentary series, Chelsea Does, "she actually brings her family in," Groth says. "People will see a different side of her."
4. Films to watch
Keep your eyes on films that subvert expectations. Christine (with Rebecca Hall in the title role) and Kate Plays Christine (a documentary/thriller) play off the same subject matter of a Florida TV reporter who committed suicide on camera in 1974. "It’s coincidence that they both came to us in the same year," Groth says.
Sundance Film Fest reveals first batch of films
Thanks to The Big Short and George Clooney's upcoming Money Monster, Wall Street films have never been hotter, and Sundance is welcoming the woman-led Equity, with Anna Gunn playing an investment banker leading a high-profile tech IPO "who has been seeking a promotion within her company and hasn’t been validated," says director Meera Menon.
Then there's How to Tell You're a Douchebag from first-time feature filmmaker Tahir Jetter, who took creative license from a failed relationship to humorously examine the misogynistic meanderings of Millennial relationships. Douchebag has "a little Sleepless in Seattle, a little When Harry Met Sally vibe," Jetter says.
5. Hot docs
Keep your eyes peeled for documentaries like Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You and Spike Lee's Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to 'Off the Wall.'
Katie Couric and Stephanie Soechtig's Under the Gun debuts at the same time as documentary Newtown. "What we are attempting to do is really to explain all the different layers that go into gun safety issues in this country," Couric says.
Ronan hasn�t uttered the word �Oscar� in a year
ESPN's documentary series O.J.: Made in America also should spark conversations. The series takes a deep dive into why O.J. became who he did, says director Ezra Edelmen. "It’s a story that started back in the '50s and '60s — both in terms of O.J.'s life and the forces that made him who he was."