2024 Sundance Film Festival Asia film program announced

G2Go Entertainment and the nonprofit Sundance Institute reveal the lineup of 10 feature fiction and documentary films, and a specially curated program of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival’s award-winning shorts for the Sundance Film Festival: Asia in Taipei, Taiwan set to take place from 21 to 25 August at SPOT-Huashan.

The 10 feature films and 5 award-winning short films were showcased at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January and were specially curated for Taipei by the Sundance Film Festival programming team. The Festival will open with the Taiwan premiere of Dìdi (弟弟), written and directed by Academy Award® nominated Taiwanese American filmmaker Sean Wang.

The lineup presents an array of international titles across films being represented from Europe, Asia, the United States, and South America.

These titles are: Rich Peppiatt’s contagiously boisterous Irish-language film, Kneecap, also winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award: NEXT, starring Academy Award® nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave, Steve Jobs); Josh Margolin’s action-packed ode to his real-life grandma, Thelma, played by the witful Academy Award® nominee June Squibb (Nebraska); a poignant father-daughter story revolving around adulthood, Good One, India Donaldson’s first feature; monster rom-com Your Monster, Caroline Lindy’s wholly original debut whose accolades include the Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 Audience Favorite Award; Jack Begert’s genre-bending directorial debut and winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival NEXT Innovator Award, Little Death, starring David Schwimmer (Friends, American Crime Story); and winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, the deeply transcendent Sujo by longtime collaborators, Mexican writers/directors, Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez.

All three documentaries in the program were awarded prizes at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. These include the winner of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, Porcelain War, by the unwavering voices of Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev; the winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, A New Kind of Wilderness by Norwegian filmmaker Silje Evensmo Jacobsen; and the Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary winner, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin by another powerful Norwegian filmmaker, Benjamin Ree.

Taiwanese audience’s appetite for compelling short stories is stronger than ever. As a special highlight of the festival’s programming, a short film program consisting of shorts awarded by the 2024 Sundance Film Festival has been invited for a showcase. These titles and their respective awards from the Festival held in January include: Say Hi After You Die by Kate Jean Hollowell, winner of the Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction; The Stag by An Chu which was awarded the Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction – An was also the recipient of the Asia festival’s short film jury prize last year; Bug Diner by Phoebe Jane Hart, winner of the Short Film Jury Award for Animation; Bob’s Funeral by Jack Dunphy which took home the Short Film Jury Award for Nonfiction; completing this special shorts program is the winner of the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, The Masterpiece by Àlex Lora.

“We are excited to return to Taipei for a second year with a fantastic lineup of films,” said Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming, and Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “It’s a privilege to bring 10 feature films and five short films from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival to Taiwanese audiences and to have the opportunity to connect with and foster the independent film community in Asia and around the world. We look forward to a spirited Sundance Festival Festival: Asia for our artists, audiences, and industry, and we can’t wait to interact with everyone at theaters and events in Taipei!”.

“We’re honored to have the Sundance Film Festival return to Taipei again this year,” said Kevin Lin, Founder of G2Go Entertainment. “In our inaugural year in 2023, Sundance Film Festival: Asia in Taipei had over 3,000 attendees. With a larger slate of films this year, we hope to provide them to a broader audience. We’re truly excited for Taiwanese movie lovers to catch these fantastic film premieres in a one-of-a-kind setting and opportunity on the large screen. We can’t wait to celebrate Sundance and independent film again in Taipei!”

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FULL PROGRAM LISTINGS:

FICTION FEATURE FILMS:

Dìdi (弟弟) / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Sean Wang, Producers: Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters, Valerie Bush) — In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.

Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, Chang Li Hua. Fiction.

Good One / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: India Donaldson, Producers: Diana Irvine, Graham Mason, Wilson Cameron) — On a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills, 17-year-old Sam contends with the competing egos of her father and his oldest friend. Cast: Lily Collias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy. Fiction.

Kneecap / Ireland (Director: Rich Peppiatt, Screenwriter: Rich Peppiatt, Producers: Trevor Birney, Jack Tarling, Co-Producers: Patrick O’Neill) – Of the 80,000 native Irish speakers, 6,000 live in the North of Ireland and three of them became a rap group called Kneecap. This is the real-life story of how this anarchic Belfast trio became the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save and reinvigorate their mother tongue.

Cast: Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Simone Kirby. Fiction.

Little Death / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Jack Begert, Screenwriter: Dani Goffstein, Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Andy S. Cohen, Dylan Golden, Brendan Naylor, Sam Canter, Noor Alfallah) — A middle-aged filmmaker on the verge of a breakthrough. Two kids in search of a lost backpack. A small dog a long way from home.

Cast: David Schwimmer, Gaby Hoffmann, Dominic Fike, Talia Ryder, Jena Malone, Sante Bentivoglio. Fiction.

Sujo / Mexico, U.S.A., France (Directors, Screenwriters, and Producers: Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, Producers: Diana Arcega, Jewerl Keats Ross, Virginie Devesa, Jean-Baptiste Bailly-Maitre) — When a cartel gunman is killed, he leaves behind Sujo, his beloved 4-year-old son. The shadow of violence surrounds Sujo during each stage of his life in the isolated Mexican countryside. As he grows into a man, Sujo finds that fulfilling his father’s destiny may be inescapable. Cast: Juan Jesús Varela, Yadira Pérez, Alexis Varela, Sandra Lorenzano, Jairo Hernández, Kevin Aguilar. Fiction.

Thelma / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Josh Margolin, Producers: Zoë Worth, Chris Kaye, Nicholas Weinstock, Benjamin Simpson, Karl Spoerri, Viviana Vezzani) — When 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim what was taken from her. Cast: June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell. Fiction.

Your Monster / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Caroline Lindy, Producers: Kayla Foster, Shannon Reilly, Melanie Donkers, Kira Carstensen) — After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming, monster living in her closet. Cast: Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Meghann Fahy, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster. Fiction. 

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILMS:

A New Kind of Wilderness / Norway (Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Producer: Mari Bakke Riise) — In a forest in Norway, a family lives an isolated lifestyle in an attempt to be wild and free, but a tragic event changes everything, and they are forced to adjust to modern society. Documentary.

Porcelain War / U.S.A., Ukraine (Director and Screenwriter: Brendan Bellomo, Director: Slava Leontyev, Producers and Screenwriters: Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Producers: Camilla Mazzaferro, Olivia Ahnemann) — Under roaring fighter jets and missile strikes, Ukrainian artists Slava, Anya, and Andrey choose to stay behind and fight, contending with the soldiers they have become. Defiantly finding beauty amid destruction, they show that although it’s easy to make people afraid, it’s hard to destroy their passion for living. Documentary.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin / Norway (Director: Benjamin Ree, Producer: Ingvil Giske) — Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer, died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world. Documentary.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM – 2024 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL AWARD-WINNING SHORTS:

Bob’s Funeral / USA

(Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Jack Dunphy)

Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.

Bug Diner / USA

(Director and Screenwriter: Phoebe Jane Hart)

A dissatisfied marriage, a secret crush, and workplace fantasies come to a head in a diner run by a mole with a hot ass.

The Masterpiece / Spain

(Director: Alex Lora Cercos, Screenwriters: Lluis Quilez, Alfonso Amador, Producers: Lluis Quilez, Sandra Travé, Alex Lora Cercos, Josemari Martínez, Néstor López)

Leo and Diana, a wealthy couple, meet Salif and Yousef, two scrap dealers, at a recycling center. Offering them more junk, Diana invites them to their mansion, but the immigrants actually might be the ones with something she wants.

Cast: Daneil Grao, Babou Cham, Melina Matthews, Adam Nourou, Guido Grao.

Say Hi After You Die / USA

(Director: Kate Jean Hollowell, Screenwriters:  Kate Jean Hollowell, Ruby Caster. Producer: Miranda Kahn)

A grieving woman believes her deceased best friend has come back to visit her… as a porta-potty.

Cast: Kate Jean Hollowell, Ruby Caster, George Basil.

The Stag / Taiwan

(Director: An Chu, Screenwriter: An Chu, Producers: Tzu-Yuan Wang, An Chu)

At a deer farm in Changhua County, a middle-aged man is asked to cut off a stag’s antlers in front of his two kids.

Cast: Yung-He Chen, Wei-Jen Chen, Si-Kai Chen.