We haven’t even seen this year’s Academy Awards yet (they air February 28th), but we’re already getting a strong sense of where the prevailing winds of 2016 might be blowing. Emerging as a powerful response to #OscarsSoWhite, Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation dominated the proceedings at the Sundance Film Festival this year, nabbing both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize. A tour-de-force starring director-screenwriter Nate Parker that retells the 1831 slave revolt led by Nat Turner, The Birth of a Nation received the most enthusiastic standing ovation at the festival, as well as the biggest deal in Sundance history, going to Fox Searchlight for $17.5 million. After two straight years of shutting out people of color in the acting categories, Parker’s Nation guarantees things will look very differently in 2017.
Kenneth (You Can Count on Me) Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea received a phenomenal reaction, starring Casey Affleck as an isolated man returning home after a family tragedy. Co-stars Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges are likely to see acting nominations for their work as well. Manchester was scooped up by Amazon for $10 million, as the studio’s first bid at an Oscar. One of the film’s producers, Matt Damon, calls Manchester by the Sea one of the best screenplays he’s ever read, a sentiment echoed by the festival audience.
Sundance also saw the return of Once director John Carney, with Sing Street, a rock musical about a boy fleeing his Dublin family to start a band in 1980s London.
The festival always shines a light on documentaries, and this year saw several that could break wide – Gleason, the story of NFL player Steve Gleason’s struggle with ALS; Life, Animated, about a boy with autism who finds connection and communication through Disney animated movies; and the documentary Grand Jury Prize went to IFC’s Weiner, which focuses on the scandal of Congressman Anthony Weiner.
2016 is already shaping up to be an interesting year.
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