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Featured prominently among the coverage from our media outlet, eight filmmakers in Raven Jackson (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama), Sing J. Lee (The Accidental Getaway Driver), Laura Moss (birth/rebirth), A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One), D. Smith (Kokomo City), Aitch Alberto (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe), and Erica Tremblay (Fancy Dance) have been selected for the 2024 Momentum Fellowship – the Sundance Institute’s incubator of sorts that helps mostly filmmakers who’ve previously delivered their feature debuts at the fest and are now gunning for the critical support for their next feature.…...

Considering the recent success of films like “Minari”, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, and “Past Lives” the necessity for such a list became dire, even though film critics and programmers around the world are still fighting about the genuine origin of the movies that are Asian-themed, but are either produced by companies from countries outside Asia, or by individuals of Asian descent. In that fashion, we also decided to include co-productions where the non-Asian element is quite intense either in terms of production or crew. The +1 is obviously there due to the particular director, although the film is Hollywood in every other aspect.

Without further ado, here are the best Asian Diaspora Movies of 2023, in reverse order, and, as always, with a focus on diversity in style, directors, and country of origin. Some films may have premiered in 2023, but since they mostly circulated in 2023, we decided to include them. When...

Exclusive: Management and production company 2Am is bolstering its finance and sales division with the hire of former Sundance Catalyst executive Julia Nelson.

Nelson will report to former WME & Endeavor Content exec Christine D’Souza Gelb who oversees the sales arm of 2Am.

2Am will be launching sales on two titles at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, and produced by 2Am, ShivHans, and AgX; and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry, produced by Dweck and Flies Collective. 2Am is co-repping worldwide rights on both projects with WME, where the filmmakers are also represented.

The company, which is a producer on Celine Song’s Golden Globe nominee Past Lives, has previously repped Sing J. Lee’s Accidental Getaway Driver, Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man.

Nelson joins the company after six years at...

A galaxy of 42 emerging creative talents from across the U.S., U.K. and India have been unveiled as the 2023 BAFTA Breakthrough cohort.

The selected talents have worked on some of the most lauded projects over the last several months including “The Last of Us,” “1923,” “Blue Jean,” “Rye Lane,” “Rocket Boys” and “Joyland.”

Breakthrough is BAFTA’s flagship new talent initiative in partnership with Netflix, drawn from creatives working in film, games and television. Awarded to those in the midst of, or on the cusp of their breakthrough moment, the year-long initiative includes one-to-one meetings and career guidance, full voting membership, access to BAFTA events and screenings, as well as networking events, both in the U.K. and internationally.

This year’s cohort comprises creatives spanning craft specialisms from hair and make up, production, editing and games design, to performance, directing and cinematography and is from diverse ethnic backgrounds and abilities.

Winner of the Directing Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition (see video), and renowned for his work in commercials and video clips, filmmaker Sing J. Lee masterfully extracts the essence from an incredible true story, tuning into the humanity in a situation-ship that should never took place. Predominantly set in a nocturnal world, the genre-blending debut The Accidental Getaway Driver is a nuanced and playful mix that feels well-thought-out in its concept, yet its open-ended and philosophical approach imbues it with a sense of unpredictability, making it a multi-night experience that feels less constrained by a rigid plot.

In our interview, I referred to Sing J.…...

At Sundance, tender hostage drama “The Accidental Getaway Driver” was all the buzz – and director Sing J. Lee was at the center of it all. Lee’s first feature was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the festival’s US Dramatic Competition, and also scored him the prestigious Directing Award for his debut.

I catch him on the ground before the accolades. Amid the festival hubbub, talking to Sing J. Lee washes one over with a sense of calm. He greets us in a sharp black turtleneck, groomed beard, and a British accent — a memento of his childhood in the UK. Our allotted twenty minutes spill over into an hour as the conversation spans across continents and oceans. Over the tiny tea table between us, I realize that the complexities of his own biography is inextricably tied to the production of “The Accidental Getaway Driver.”

“I can...

Exclusive: Apple has rounded out the cast for its crime drama series Sinking Spring with the addition of Golden Globe winner Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible franchise), Dustin Nguyen (The Accidental Getaway Driver), Nesta Cooper (See), Idris Debrand (Dear Edward), Liz Caribel (Pussy Island) and Will Pullen (A Little Prayer).

The actors join an ensemble led by 2023 Academy Award nom Brian Tyree Henry (of the Apple drama Causeway) which also includes Michael Mando, Marin Ireland, Kate Mulgrew and Amir Arison, as previously announced.

Related Story ‘Presumed Innocent’: Chase Infiniti, Lily Rabe, Nana Mensah, Matthew Alan & Kingston Rumi Southwick Cast In Apple TV+ Series Related Story 'The Blacklist' Star Amir Arison Joins Ridley Scott's Apple Series 'Sinking Spring' Related Story Marin Ireland Joins Apple's 'Sinking Spring' TV Series

The eight-episode series created by Top Gun: Maverick scribe Peter Craig, entering production this week in Philadelphia,...

Dali Benssalah, the rising French actor who’s just joined the FX limited series “The Veil” and stars in the Sundance prize-winning film “The Accidental Getaway Driver,” has joined UTA.

Benssalah’s career has taken off since starring in Rebecca Zlotowski’s politically-minded series “Savages” in 2019. He went on to deliver an acclaimed performance as the lead role in Romain Gavras’ gripping thriller “Athena,” which competed at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Prior to “The Accidental Getaway Driver,” which won best director at Sundance, Benssalah starred opposite Daniel Craig in the James Bond film “No Time to Die.”

Speaking to Variety, Benssalah said he was introduced to UTA during a trip to Los Angeles where he was presenting “Athena” as part of the American French Film Festival (previously Colcoa) in November.

“The Veil” is the first role he landed under his new UTA representation. The series, which will air exclusively on Hulu,...

Having amassed an impressive CV of high profile music videos and commercials with A-list talent, director Sing. J Lee makes his feature debut with The Accidental Getaway Driver, a narrative based on true events. Not the only film at Sundance this year based on an article from a major publication, Lee’s film takes as its inspiration a 2017 GQ article that recounted the night an elderly Vietnamese-American cab driver picked up three customers who, unbeknownst to him, were recent escapees of the Orange County Men’s Central Jail. As the evening quickly devolved into danger and chaos, the driver was held hostage, […]

The post “On the Last Day We Needed That Driving Scene”: Sing J. Lee on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Having amassed an impressive CV of high profile music videos and commercials with A-list talent, director Sing. J Lee makes his feature debut with The Accidental Getaway Driver, a narrative based on true events. Not the only film at Sundance this year based on an article from a major publication, Lee’s film takes as its inspiration a 2017 GQ article that recounted the night an elderly Vietnamese-American cab driver picked up three customers who, unbeknownst to him, were recent escapees of the Orange County Men’s Central Jail. As the evening quickly devolved into danger and chaos, the driver was held hostage, […]

The post “On the Last Day We Needed That Driving Scene”: Sing J. Lee on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This year, women directors – and their women-centric subjects – swept the awards at Sundance Film Festival. Three women directors – Madeleine Gavin, Maryam Keshavarz, and Noora Niasari – won Audience Awards for their films on North Korea (“Beyond Utopia”), intergenerational motherhood (“The Persian Version”), and custody in diaspora (“Shayda”). Portraits of masculinity were also celebrated as well. First-time feature filmmaker Sing J. Lee won the Directing Award for his touching portrait of masculinity and fatherhood in “The Accidental Getaway Driver,” while Sauvnik Kaur’s intimate documentary on brotherhood “Against The Tide” took home a Special Jury Award. After two years of isolation and virtual festival-ing, it seems that stories of tenderness appealed over aggressive storytelling at Park City this year.

“This year’s Festival has been an extraordinary experience,” said Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO. “The artists that comprise the 2023 Sundance Film Festival have demonstrated a sense of urgency and dedication to excellence in independent film.

Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, editor Yang Hua Hu discusses his work in cutting this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]

The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, editor Yang Hua Hu discusses his work in cutting this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]

The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Big sales were hardly in short supply at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, with Netflix going wild for “Fair Play,” AppleTV+ shelling out for “Flora and Son,” and Searchlight Pictures snapping up “Theater Camp”, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of superior films still looking for homes.

Of the still-for-sale titles that premiered at this year’s festival, there’s plenty to intrigue all sorts of buyers, from those looking for films with excellent performances that could inspire major awards pushes (like the Jonathan Majors-starring “Magazine Dreams”), those in search of the next big director, hungry genre hounds (see: “Divinity”), and even documentary lovers looking for films with incredible real world impact.

And while it’s still early days, given the incredible assortment of films still looking for homes, we can’t help but tout their allure to all interested buyers. These aren’t just...

by Jason Adams

Blessedly patient with its could’ve been wacky and wild premise, writer-director Sing J. Lee’s The Accidental Getaway Driver opts to be a methodical mood piece. This based-on-a-true-story tale is about an elderly Vietnamese driver named Long (Hiep Tran Nghia) who takes the wrong phone call at the wrong time and gets dragged into a crime-drama he has no place being in the middle of. You can see the 90s Jackie Chan high-concept version of this story staring in, but Lee’s film aims for and hits something much deeper. Something that speaks to assimilation and generational divides in hushed tones, and with a genuine tension that remains unshowy at every turn. I loved it...

The Accidental Getaway Driver Review — The Accidental Getaway Driver (2023) Film Review from the 46th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Sing J. Lee, written by Christopher Chen and Sing J. Lee and starring Hiep Tran Nghia, Dustin Nguyen, Dali Benssalah, Phi Vu, Gabrielle Chan, Vivien Ngo, Sharon Sharth, Travon McCall, Edward [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: The Accidental Getaway Driver: Sing J. Lee’s Film is a Dark Story of Redemption with Fine Acting [Sundance 2023]...

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the festival’s first in-person competition since 2020, has revealed its award winners.

The big winners included Maryam Keshavarz‘s The Persian Version, which earned both the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, and A.V. Rockwell‘s A Thousand and One, which took home the Grand Jury Prize in the same category.

The Persian Version explores an Iranian-American family’s past as its patriarch gets a heart transplant while A Thousand and One centers around a mother who kidnaps her son from the foster care system in order to find a path toward redemption.

Other winners include Festival Favorite Radical directed by Christopher Zalla and Grand Jury Prize winner for U.S. Documentary, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.

The festival has highlighted 101 different features and 64 shorts. These films were selected from a total of 15,856 submissions. Most of...

A Thousand and One took the jury prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, with Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project taking the top prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition section.

A Thousand and One is directed by A.V. Rockwell and follows a mother who kidnaps her six-year-old son Terry from the foster care system, a secret that threatens their way of life as Terry gets older. The Focus Features title stars Teyana Taylor, Josiah Cross and Will Catlett.

“When I was writing this film, I was thinking about mother and son relationships. I was thinking about Black women and Black men relationships. I was thinking about marginalized people and their relationship to their homes,” said Rockwell, accepting the award. “Thank you to everyone for seeing all of those groups and for seeing me.” A tearful Jeremy O. Harris, who was a part of the dramatic jury,...

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its Jury and Audience Award winners for 2023.

The day’s big winners included Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version, which claimed both the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in U.S. Dramatic Competition, as well as A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One for Focus Features, which took the Grand Jury Prize in the same section.

Other titles taking top awards included Festival Favorite Radical from filmmaker Christopher Zalla and 3Pas Studios; Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project from Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, which took the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary; Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia, which nabbed the U.S. Documentary Audience Award; and D. Smith’s Kokomo City, which dominated the Next section as it claimed both the Innovator and Audience Award.

Written, directed and produced by Keshavarz for Archer Grey, The Persian Version watches...

Back in Park City, Utah, for the first time since 2020, the Sundance Film Festival concluded with an in-person awards show. The U.S. dramatic grand jury prize went to the Focus Features release “A Thousand and One,” from debut writer-director A.V. Rockwell, one of eight women in this year’s female-led competition.

Jeremy O. Harris, a member of the three-person U.S. dramatic jury at Sundance, choked back tears as he presented the award to Rockwell, admitting that he left the director’s premiere screening and cried on the street, as the film unearthed “all the feelings I’ve learned to mask in public spaces.”

Rockwell’s film is set in an unforgiving New York City in the late ’90s, where a single mother moving from shelter to shelter kidnaps her 6-year-old son from foster care. As they improbably forge a life and bond, their darkest secret threatens to disrupt what they’ve built.

As the first in-person Sundance Film Festival since 2020 draws to a close, it’s time to see which films are taking home the festival’s most coveted awards. While there are many ways to measure success at Sundance — and many filmmakers are certainly more interested in a big sale than a trophy — the awards are nevertheless an important way of measuring which films resonated with the Park City crowd.

Friday’s award ceremony is the culmination of what has already been a very eventful festival. Despite the multitude of changes that the independent film world and the streaming industry are currently undergoing, this year’s festival still featured its share of buzzy premieres and splashy acquisitions. One of the most talked about movies in Park City has been Chloe Domont’s erotic thriller “Fair Play,” which sold to Netflix for a reported price of 20 million. The festival also featured some...

MTV Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to Sundance world-premiering love story The Eternal Memory, director Maite Alberdi’s follow-up to Oscar nominated doc The Mole Agent. The price is said to be approaching 3 million in a competitive situation with a number of bidders.

The film, which screened in the Sundance Film Festival World Documentary Competition section, will have its international premiere at the Berlinale next month in the Panorama Section and the company is planning a theatrical release and robust awards campaign later this year.

Related Story Sundance Film Festival 2023: Best Of The Red Carpet, Film Premieres & Parties Gallery Related Story Sundance Review: Cynthia Erivo & Alia Shawkat In Anthony Chen's 'Drift' Related Story Sundance Review: Sing J. Lee's 'The Accidental Getaway Driver'

The Eternal Memory was produced by Maite Alberdi, Juan De Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín and Rocío Jadue. Executive producers are Marcela Santibañez,...

The premise is simple; it promises a comical, stranger-than-fiction thrill-ride. Late at night, an elderly Vietnamese cab driver begrudgingly agrees to a routine pickup where he’s taken hostage at gunpoint by three recently escaped Orange County convicts. Based on Paul Kix’s similarly titled GQ story, The Accidental Getaway Driver certainly begins at a tense pace, but over the course of a few days this enervating scenario shifts into a lower gear, becoming a scattered meditation on masculinity that wrings out just enough emotional truth to appease its multi-genre approach.

Against the clock, these three outlaws––Tây (Dustin Nguyen), Aden (Dali Benssalah) and Eddie (Phi Vu)––start crossing off the items on their escape-plan checklist: they get haircuts, make calls, stop at Wal-Mart, and demand obedience from Long (Hiep Tran Nghia), their involuntary wheelman attempting to stay calm while navigating Little Saigon under extreme pressure. When Aiden and Eddie...

Anyone who has traveled to seaside resort areas around the world will recognize them, the obvious foreigners who spend their days approaching tourists with assorted trinkets to sell and are most often ignored or shooed away by Westerners. Precious few films have put such figures centerstage, but Drift does that and quite a bit more as it examines a young woman whose currently forlorn position in the world masks the very different sort of life to which she was once accustomed.

Tragedy and bereavement are dealt with an exceptionally acute and insightful manner in Drift. Working from a 2013 novel by Alexander Maksik, the full title of which is A Marker to Measure Drift, the author and his co-writer Susanne Farrell tackled a challenging narrative that many filmgoers would readily avoid, a personal tragedy of staggering magnitude. But not only has Singapore director Anthony Chen set himself a tough task in this ambitious adaptation,...

The title “The Accidental Getaway Driver” says it all: A down-on-his-luck driver picks up felons in his vehicle and unwittingly gets mixed up in their criminal acts. This “Collateral”-esque proposition propels renowned music video director Sing J. Lee’s minor-key and frustratingly one-note crime-drama, inspired by the true story of a Southern California driver of Vietnamese descent held hostage by three Orange County prison runaways — an incident told in a 2017 GQ article by Paul Kix.

The premise immediately screams “cinematic thriller,” and Lee’s polished, neo-noir-adjacent nighttime sequences (captured stylishly by Dp Michael Cambio Fernandez with lush neon colors and deep contrasting blacks) does right by the idea in the visual department. Unfortunately, the script — co-written by Lee and Christopher Chen — leaves a lot to be desired, squandering the old-school appeal of the true-crime drama for a dull and overlong mood piece in which nothing much happens and no...

When cabdriver Long (Hiep Tran Nghia) reluctantly sets out to pick up a fare near the start of The Accidental Getaway Driver, he has no way of knowing where the journey might take him. Even those of us in the audience, well aware of the title, might find it difficult to guess. Because although the film starts as the gritty crime thriller suggested by its core premise, it pivots, unexpectedly but effectively, into something much more tender.

From the minute we meet Long, it’s obvious what kind of existence he’s leading. He’s first seen alone in a shabby apartment, listening to an old CD so banged-up it hardly plays anymore. His neighbors can be seen and heard playing chess outside his window, but this elderly, worn-down soul seems to have no place among them. When he’s called for a job late at night, he grumbles but finally gives in.

Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, cinematographer Michael Fernandez discusses his work in filming this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fernandez: I had a built a relationship with the director over the last […]

The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, cinematographer Michael Fernandez discusses his work in filming this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fernandez: I had a built a relationship with the director over the last […]

The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Tears and Asian pride flowed on stage after the Sundance premiere of Accidental Getaway Driver, the feature debut of longtime commercials and music video director Sing J. Lee.

Based on true events in which a Vietnamese driver is kidnapped by three convicts and used to ferry them in their escape, the story seems ready-made for an “action thriller” adaptation. But Lee had other plans when he first read the 2017 GQ article on which it’s based.

“It seemed like it could be a certain kind of film,” said Lee at the movie’s post-screening Q&a. “But I immediately saw four human beings in this story that could embody so many part of my own family and life experiences or [be] seen in the life of my parents. I saw something so tender and fragile that I haven’t seen so much in the West. And I just felt this drive to...

The Accidental Getaway Driver is one those rare, where-did-this-come-from films that every so often pops up to invigorate festivals and adventurous viewers on the lookout for something fresh and different. Generically, this is nothing new, a low-down gritty crime drama populated by cars, guns and desperate characters. But the movie, which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, benefits considerably from being set in the rarely, if ever, filmed Little Saigon section of Orange County south of Los Angeles; a highly unlikely cast dominated by an octogenarian not looking for trouble; and, crucially, a noirish nocturnal milieu that injects the action with dread, even with a final stretch doesn’t really pay off with the kind of tension you expect from a crime drama. However, despite its lack of an exciting climax, this is a film that draws you in and offers sufficient satisfactions to...

“These kind of stories have sustained us for 25 years.”

IndieWire’s Eric Kohn set the tone at the First-Time Filmmakers Cocktail Party, presented by Canada Goose at Sundance on January 22. The original stories and perspectives from directors making their feature debuts powers IndieWire and the film industry, and IndieWire couldn’t be happier to celebrate them.

There’s something electric about new filmmakers meeting each other for the first time. At the three-hour event, hosted at the Canada Goose Basecamp on Main Street in Park City, “Aum: The Cult at the End of the World” co-director Chiaki Yanigimoto talked with “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” filmmaker Anna Hints, while Sing J. Lee arrived with the cast of his stirring film “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” Narrative filmmakers exchanged tips with documentarians, and everyone celebrated cinema.

Among the other attendees were Lin Alluna, Thembi L. Banks, Razelle Benally, Ben Braun, Jacqueline Castel, Mstyslav Chernov,...

Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? For the most part, this film was a good portion of night shoots. When we shot exteriors in daylight, we were aiming for early mornings or late afternoons, in some cases, gearing towards either of the twilights and the minutes proceeding or preceding it. The importance of the light at these times holds meaning for the moments they appear in […]

The post “I Wanted the Atmosphere To Feel as if the Light Was Slipping Away” | Sing J. Lee, The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? For the most part, this film was a good portion of night shoots. When we shot exteriors in daylight, we were aiming for early mornings or late afternoons, in some cases, gearing towards either of the twilights and the minutes proceeding or preceding it. The importance of the light at these times holds meaning for the moments they appear in […]

The post “I Wanted the Atmosphere To Feel as if the Light Was Slipping Away” | Sing J. Lee, The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Andy Sorgie knew he had finally found his passion project when he read Paul Kix’s 2017 GQ feature “The Accidental Get Away Driver,” the true story of Long Ma, an elderly driver-for-hire in Orange County whose life was unexpectedly upended one night when his passengers turned out to be convicts on the run from a recent prison escape. What sounds like a crime thriller is actually a surprising tale of lonely men marginalized by society and their own choices, and the ability to find redemption and chosen family in the most unlikely of places.

“It’s about a group of people that you don’t really see shown in media too often,” says Sorgie, vice president of film at Kimberly Steward’s K Period Media. “I was always looking at it like, ‘How do we tell [Ma’s] story and make sure that he has a voice in it?’ He’s not...

Every year, IndieWire reaches out to the cinematographers behind the films premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and asks which cameras, lenses, and formats they used, and why they chose them to create the looks and meet the production demands of their films. Here are the responses from filmmakers who brought scripted narrative features to the festival; check back tomorrow for a survey of the 2023 documentary lineup.

Films appear in alphabetical order by title.

“The Accidental Getaway Driver”

Dir: Sing J. Lee, DoP: Michael Cambio Fernandez

Format: 3.2K Arriraw

Camera: Arri Alexa Mini

Lens: Hawk Anamorphic

Fernandez: I think the wide aspect ratio helped tell the story of four characters in small spaces and emphasize the feelings of being trapped. The Mini helped us get into limited spaces and using one camera allowed the characters to move with what limited spaces we had. The story is about three escaped...

The Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner, and IndieWire is ready to celebrate with a trio of events produced via our ongoing partnership with Canada Goose.

On Saturday, January 22, IndieWire and Canada Goose will host their second “First-Time Filmmakers” Sundance panel, featuring filmmakers making their directorial debut through a Sundance premiere. The inaugural “First-Time Filmmakers” panel was hosted last year as a virtual event. This time it’ll be at the Canada Goose Basecamp on Main Street in the heart of Park City.

IndieWire’s Executive Editor and Vice President of Editorial Strategy Eric Kohn will moderate this year’s event, with featured panelists including U.S. Dramatic Competiton directors A.V. Rockwell (“A Thousand and One”), Sing J. Lee (“The Accidental Getaway Driver”), and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz (“Mutt”), who will chronicle the challenges and triumphs of getting their first features made. Canada Goose will host the event at its Basecamp in Sundance.

For the last few years, Sundance has had a strong record for premiering Asian titles that would overtake the film festival circuit. Asian diaspora and titles from Asia alike dominated the slate last year, with Indian documentary “All That Breathes” taking home the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema Documentary; Christine Choy-starring “The Exiles” walking away with the Grand Jury Prize in US Documentary; and Kogonada’s quiet sci-fi “After Yang” winning the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. Other productions have made a splash on the circuit as well, like the Martika Ramirez Escobar’s stunning debut “Leonor Will Never Die” and Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s well-researched documentary “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The successes of the previous years have ramped up our own excitement for what is to come in 2023 — which will be, for the first time in the last 2 years, premiere in-person,...

Passages.The Sundance Institute has announced the films selected for their 2023 Festival, which will take place in-person in Park City, Utah, from January 19-29, 2023. A selection of the films will be available virtually in the US from January 24-29.U.S. Dramatic COMPETITIONThe Accidental Getaway Driver (Sing J. Lee): During a routine pickup, an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage at gunpoint by three recently escaped Orange County convicts. Based on a true story. World Premiere.All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson): A decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in Mississippi and an ode to the generations of people, places, and ineffable moments that shape us. World Premiere.Fair Play (Chloe Domont): An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple’s relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement. World Premiere.Fancy Dance (Erica Tremblay...

Setting the stage for the year in cinema, the 2023 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 19-29, both in person in Utah as well as virtual viewings kicking off five days into the festival. Ahead of next month’s festivities, the festival has now unveiled its features lineup, which features 99 films.

Initial highlights of the lineup include Ira Sachs’ Passages, starring Franz Rogowski, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Ben Whishaw, William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth follow-up Eileen, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, produced by Barry Jenkins, Bad Behaviour, the directorial debut of Jane Campion’s daughter Alice Englert, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth, Nicole Holofcener’s’ You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and more.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

The 12 films in this section are all world premieres. All 12 will be available to stream online.

The Accidental Getaway Driver (Director and Screenwriter: Sing J. Lee,...

The Sundance Institute has announced the feature film lineup for the 2023 festival, taking place January 19 – 29, 2023, in person in Utah, along with a selection of films available online across the country January 24 – 29. The selection includes Competition titles, the Premieres section, and the Midnight section, with 101 feature-length films representing 23 countries, 94 percent of which are world premieres.

This year’s program includes plenty of familiar names, with new films from Nicole Holofcener, Ira Sachs, Brandon Cronenberg, Sebastian Silva, Cory Finley, Justin Chon, Nicole Newnham, Maite Alberdi, Roger Ross Williams, Sophie Barthes, Lana Wilson, Davis Guggenheim, Rebecca Zlotowski, Anton Corbijn, and many more.

Notable actors at this year’s festival range from Jonathan Majors in “Magazine Dreams,” Daisy Ridley in “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” and Sarah Snook in midnight opener “Run Rabbit Run.” Other notable names found throughout the lineup include Ben Whishaw, Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Thomasin McKenzie,...

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Take two.

After last year’s in-person festival was canceled at the last minute because of the winter Covid-19 surge due to the Omicron variant, the Sundance Film Festival is returning to Park City for the first time since 2020 with a line-up of 101 feature-length films, representing 23 countries, that was annoucned today.

The U.S. Dramatic Competition section features thirteen titles. The Jonathan Majors-fronted Magazine Dreams, Randall Park’s directorial debut Shortcomings, and the latest from Will Ferrell and Jessica Elbaum’s Gloria Sanchez, Theater Camp, are among those vying for the top festival prize.

As for non-fiction, several bio-docs centered on big-name talent are festival bound, including Michael J. Fox (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie), Brooke Shields (Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields), Little Richard (Little Richard: I Am Everything), and Judy Blume (Judy Blume Forever). Years past have seen docs on Taylor Swift,...

"This is an unprecedented operation." Whoa!! There's a Hong Kong sci-fi action movie called Warriors of Future that has finally opened in theaters in China and Hong Kong this summer. It was being prepped for release in 2019, with an early trailer dropping years ago. But after all the pandemic delays and lockdowns, it's only being released now. Set in the year 2055, a meteorite brings an extraterrestrial to the Earth in the form of an alien vine that "purifies the planet but kills everything in its path." (Is this anti-climate change propaganda?) When powerful alien creatures threaten humanity, Cmmdr. Sing Lee's elite forces are almost wiped out, and the surviving soldier Tai Loi discovers an even bigger conspiracy. Starring Louis Koo, Sean Lau, Carina Lau, Philip Keung, Tse Kwan-ho, and Nick Cheung. This looks Extra epic, from a VFX supervisor making his directorial debut. It's even being marketed as the...

Sylvia M. Zakhary is the founder of Mamag Group, a Los Angeles-based entertainment holding company for the producer’s portfolio of endeavors all focused on representation and equitable opportunity in media. Founded in 2016, Mamag is home to a creative agency; a creative incubator that nurtures talent; and a film and TV production company that collaborates with clients across music, film, art, advocacy, fashion, and technology. It’s responsible for Beyonce’s “Black is King” musical film and a successful Adidas Originals campaign featuring Donald Glover.

Zakhary’s latest project is the Storyhouse Foundation, born out of a desire to create space that nurtures creatives of color, who Hollywood has often treated as footnotes rather than theses. The nonprofit is designed to bring together artists and tastemakers across industries to encourage healing across creative mediums. This concept for an ever-expanding wellness space — or “new structure of feeling,” as she puts it...