Sundance Film Festival: London announces biggest lineup to date

Sundance Institute and Picturehouse announced the programme of feature films, short films and panel discussions for the Sundance Film Festival: London 2022, taking place from 9 to 12 June at Picturehouse Central, presented in association with Adobe.

The festival will present 12 feature films from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A., selected for London by the Sundance Institute programming team in collaboration with Picturehouse. The Festival opens on 9 June with the UK premiere of Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, directed by Sundance alumna and Best Director winner (at Sundance Film Festival 2022), Sophie Hyde. Lead actors Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack are confirmed to attend the premiere on 9 June, with the film also playing at cinemas across the UK as part of the second annual Festival Tour. The festival will close four days later on 12 June with the UK premiere screening of British filmmaker Jim Archer’s feature Brian and Charles, presented by Time Out. The feel-good comedy film stars British actor and comedian David Earl as Brian, a lonely and unlucky inventor who builds an artificial intelligence robot made from odds and ends, including an old washing machine.

The festival will feature an equal number of male and female directors in this year’s film selection (across features and shorts), allowing a range of British, Finnish, French, Australian, Emirati, Indonesian, Canadian, Lebanese and American filmmakers to tell their authentic stories.

Alongside the opening and closing night films, the festival will present a selection of remarkable and wide-ranging filmmaking. Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul is an American dark comedy satire written, directed and produced by Adamma Ebo in her directorial debut, and featuring a stellar cast that includes Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown and Nicole Beharie. Andrew Semans’ psychological thriller Resurrection stars Rebecca Hall as Margaret, a woman who balances the demands of a busy career and single parenthood. Her carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past, David, played excellently by Tim Roth, returns, forcing her to confront the monster she’s evaded for two decades.

In addition, cinema-goers will be able to take in the impressive and tender A Love Song, directed by Max Walker-Silverman, which tells the story of two childhood sweethearts, now both widowed, reuniting after 40 years apart. Receiving its world premiere at the Festival in 2022, the bold and funny Sharp Stick is Lena Dunham’s long-awaited follow up to Tiny Furniture, and follows a naive 26-year-old living on the fringes of Hollywood who begins an affair with her older employer and is thrust into an education on lust, loss and power. Chloe Okuno’s debut psychological thriller, Watcher (Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival 2022 U.S. Dramatic Competition), was shot during the pandemic and stars Maika Monroe as an expat being stalked.

As in previous years, the London edition will provide a strong documentary offering, which this year will be presented by Kia. Sara Dosa’s engrossing Fire of Love (winner of the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival), follows the lives and careers of Volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft and is narrated by Miranda July. British director Ed Perkins’ highly anticipated The Princess lets archive footage do the talking in this compelling and uncompromising documentary of Princess Diana’s story. Joe Hunting’s groundbreaking and immersive debut documentary feature, We Met in Virtual Reality, takes place entirely within the online platform VRChat. It explores the social relations developed by users of VRChat during the pandemic and how their lives were changed by their time on the platform. Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s documentary, Free Chol Soo Lee, details a Korean immigrant’s wrongful conviction and doubles as a portrait of the brutality of incarceration. The film follows the intense issues that arise when it comes to racial profiling and how the Korean community rallied together to bring one man justice.

The 2022 Festival continues the Sundance tradition of supporting emerging voices in filmmaking. In addition to Adamma Ebo, Max Walker-Silverman and Joe Hunting’s debut features, the festival will also host Hanna Bergholm’s debut Hatching, an inventive Finnish horror. The film follows Tinja, a 12-year-old gymnast desperate to please her mother. After finding a wounded bird in the woods, Tinja brings a strange mop egg home and nurtures it until it hatches. The creature that emerges soon becomes her closest friend and a living nightmare, plunging Tinja into a twisted reality.

Tabitha Jackson, Sundance Film Festival Director said: “We’re excited to be back in London to present a great selection of work from our Utah Festival programme to the wonderful audiences at Picturehouse Central. Alongside some truly original voices and perspectives on the screen, we’re looking forward to joining filmmakers and an array of industry players for some illuminating conversations about the present and future possibilities of independent cinema. And there’ll be fun of course. And cocktails.”

Clare Binns, managing director Picturehouse Cinemas added: “We are so happy to be hosting Sundance Film Festival: London once again at Picturehouse Central, celebrating and supporting the best independent cinema direct from Sundance Utah. We are delighted to be back together in person with our friends from Sundance US, and are proud to announce a broad and diverse programme, which champions female voices and encourages an inclusive industry landscape. We are excited for audiences to join us for a thrilling offering of films on the big screen, talks and special guest appearances.”

Wendy Mitchell, festival producer, Sundance Film Festival: London said: “Sundance Film Festival: London is shaping up to be a banner edition. I’m so excited for the film programme the team has curated, which really does have something for everyone – insightful documentaries, moving dramas, thought-provoking horror films, and a great eccentric British comedy. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is personally one of my favourite films of 2022 and to open the festival with Emma Thompson is such a dream. We can’t wait to connect the filmmakers with an in-person audience at Picturehouse Central to share such a wonderful programme.”

Following on from the success of last year’s Sundance Film Festival London Tour, this year’s edition will again see films showing in cinemas across the UK. Three films, led by Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, will screen at upwards of 30 cinemas across the festival dates of 9-12 June 2022. The additional films will be announced at a later date.

Two short film programmes will showcase the work of emerging and established independent filmmakers as part of the Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour, including a strand dedicated to UK shorts.

The festival’s first dedicated Industry Programme will run alongside the festival’s public screenings and events. During four days of industry-focused talks and events, this robust strand will welcome the UK film industry to build their personal networks, understand industry trends, discover new work and share their own unique storytelling passions with other independent filmmakers. Each industry passholder will have exclusive access to more than 15 industry-only events during the festival, including intimate roundtable meetings, keynotes, masterclasses, themed panel discussions and daily networking drinks. The festival is thrilled to welcome iconic US producer Christine Vachon to London to deliver an in-person industry keynote talk.

Festivalgoers will have a special chance to catch an unannounced title with the festival’s fourth Surprise Film.

Sundance Film Festival: London Ticket Passes are on sale now, with priority booking for Picturehouse Members and Sundance Film Festival Ticket Passholders on sale from 10:00am, 25 April. General ticket sales will open at 10:00am on 3 May. Tickets can be purchased today with a Sundance Film Festival ticket pass; buy yours now at picturehouses.com/sundance.

Sundance are committed to offering a number of screenings and events with deaf and hard of hearing access options during the festival; more details will be published on the website.

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View the full lineup here.