Photo: Nostromo Pictures
Sundance has put its movies where its mouth is. Robert Redford’s world-famous film festival has always been a platform for filmmakers to showcase stories that broke boundaries and gave a voice to the voiceless.
Well, Sundance 2019 is the festival’s most progressive edition in its 41-year history, breaking inclusion records across the board. Nearly 45 percent of the movies that were chosen by the vaunted Sundance Institute feature women behind the camera. Here is a rundown of the 10 Must-See 2019 Sundance Movies By Female Filmmakers that will be making a lot of noise in Park City, Utah.
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What are you excited to see at Sundance 2019? Leave your comments below.
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10 Female Directed Sundance Movies
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'The Nightingale' - Directed by Jennifer Kent
Babadook director Jennifer Kent is back with one of the most anticipated films of Sundance 2019. Set in 1825 in an Australian penal colony, The Nightingale stars newcomer Aisling Franciosi as a young Irish convict who chases down a British officer (Sam Claflin) through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness after he’s done very bad things to her family. A period piece revenge movie? We’re totally in.
Photo: Bron Studios
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'Hala' - Directed by Minhal Baig
This coming-of-age movie checks off all the boxes in Sundance’s commitment to inclusion. Jada Pinkett Smith executive-produced writer/director Minhal Baig’s personal tale about a forbidden romance between a Pakistani teen (Geraldine Viswanathan from Blockers) and a classmate (Jack Kilmer, Val's son) who complicates her parents' plans for an arranged marriage.
Photo: Sundance
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'Knock Down the House' - Directed by Rachel Lears
Sundance vet Rachel Lears' timely documentary tracks four extraordinary everyday women who run for Congress, battling powerful political machines in very different American landscapes. One of them even becomes a household name (hint: AOC).
Photo: Sundance
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'Paradise Hills' - Directed by Alice Waddington
Spanish filmmaker Alice Waddington's whimsical sci-fi fantasy-farce stars Emma Roberts, who is sent to a high-class treatment facility on an isolated tropical island where well-off families send their daughters to become perfect versions of themselves.
Photo: Nostromo Pictures
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'The Farewell' - Directed by Lulu Wang
Cancer is a favorite Sundance plot device but we haven’t seen it from the perspective of an Asian family. Writer/director Lulu Wang adapted her real-life tale about a Chinese-American woman (Crazy Rich Asians breakout star Awkwafina) returning to China after her grandmother has been diagnosed as terminally ill. Family hijinks and drama ensue when they decide to keep the bad news from the stricken matriarch.
Photo: Sundance
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'Late Night' - Directed by Nisha Ganatra
This high-concept comedy (we're kidding) centered on a female late-night talk host (Emma Thompson) who hires a young writer (Mindy Kaling who also wrote the screenplay) to hip up her show.
Photo: FilmNation
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'One Child Nation' - Directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang
Nanfu Wang treks through her homeland to tell the untold and often horrific chapter in Chinese history that sheds light on the consequences of one of the world’s largest social experiments.
Photo: Sundance
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'Greener Grass' - Directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe
A twisted comedy set in suburbia where adults wear braces, couples don color-coordinated outfits, and family members are swapped like salt and sugar.
Photo: Lowell Mayer (Sundance)
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'Animals' - Directed by Sophie Hyde
Two boozy BFFs just want to have fun in a Dublin apartment when one of them gets engaged to a pianist teetotaler who gets in the way of their friendship and drinking.
Photo: Cornerstone Films
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'Pahokee' - Directed by Ivete Locas and Patrick Bresnan
Four teens from a rural Everglades town in Florida face heartbreak and celebrate in the rituals of an extraordinary senior year of high school.
Photo: Sundance
