Lifestyle
Sundance Festival breakthroughs of 2024: Here are 14 new films to look forward to
The festival returned for rousing in-person premieres, panels, and commemorative screenings of past Sundance breakouts including Napoleon Dynamite and Mississippi Masala.
Maya Dehlin/2023 Sundance Institute / Pho
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Maya Dehlin/2023 Sundance Institute / Pho
The Sundance Film Festival celebrated its 40th anniversary this year and the vibes in Park City, Utah were understandably nostalgic – sprinkled throughout the 10-day event were special screenings of past Sundance breakouts, including Mississippi Masala, Napoleon Dynamite, and Pariah.
But first and foremost, the fest was all about premiering a generous slate of new films by both emerging and established filmmakers, and the options were vast. I was in attendance for much of the festival and had the chance to sample just over 20 features in-person and online, stories ranging from intimate family dramas to bold political statements to charming coming-of-age comedies.
The festival concludes Sunday, but the awards were announced on Friday; among the big winners were the debut feature film In the Summers by Alessandra Lacorazza about the volatile relationship between a father and his daughters which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Ukraine war documentary Porcelain War which won the parallel U.S. Grand Jury documentary prize.
Some films arrived at the festival with distribution deals firmly in place, but at the time of writing, many deals and potential distribution dates are still being worked out. As is the case every year, the buzz around certain films means we all will be seeing those in streaming or theatrical form at some undetermined point in the future.
Here are some of my favorites from this year.
What the …?
A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh.
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A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh.
Sundance Institute
There’s usually at least one movie at Sundance every year that makes you go, What the hell did I just watch??? This year, I saw two: Steven Soderbergh’s immersive ghost tale Presence and Aaron Schimberg’s agitating psychological drama A Different Man.
Soderbergh, ever the experimental filmmaker, collaborated with screenwriter David Koepp to craft the story of a haunted house told entirely from the ghost’s point of view after a new family – which has recently been rocked by tragedy – moves in. (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan play the parents, newcomers Callina Liang and Eddy Maday are their bickering children.) The less you know of the details going in, the better. But what can be said for sure is that it’s an experience unlike any other, putting the viewer in the discomfiting position of watching this family’s dramas (and traumas) play out unfiltered. The technical feats Soderbergh pulls off with the camera and editing will be studied for years to come, but the narrative themes and storytelling choices demand equal dissection. Following its Sundance premiere, Presence sold to distributor Neon.
Schimberg’s movie is even weirder, and to be honest, I’m still not sure whether I think it’s brilliant or much ado amounting to … not much. But I’m still thinking about it days later, and it renders one of Sebastian Stan’s best performances to date. He plays Edward, an aspiring actor limited by a genetic facial mutation; after he undergoes reconstructive surgery to alter his appearance, he’s confronted with the consequence of this drastic decision in the form of Oswald (Adam Pearson), a jovial, beloved man who has the same medical condition Edward once had. (In real life, Pearson has neurofibromatosis.) It’s brutal, unsettling, and a lot. A Different Man came to the festival with a distribution deal already in place with A24, so expect to be baffled by it soon enough.
Familial pangs
André Holland and Andra Day appear in Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar.
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André Holland and Andra Day appear in Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar.
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Some of the biggest hits to come out of Sundance tend to be emotional family dramas (see Little Miss Sunshine, CODA). One of my favorites this year is Exhibiting Forgiveness, the feature debut of artist Titus Kaphar, starring André Holland as Tarrell, an acclaimed painter who harbors some unresolved childhood trauma. When his father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) suddenly reappears in his life, Tarrell’s finally forced to deal with years’ worth of accumulated rage and hurt. What starts off feeling like your standard-issue indie melodrama ultimately emerges as something much deeper, more fascinating, and refreshingly unconventional. Holland and Jelks are excellent here, buoyed by strong supporting performances from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Andra Day.
A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature behind the camera, was also a pleasant surprise; he and Kieran Culkin play estranged cousins who embark on a Holocaust tour in Poland in the wake of the death of their grandmother. It strikes the right balance of darkness, levity, and grief – the awkward dynamics within the tour group are especially notable – and Culkin is pretty perfect playing a live wire type, who’s somehow both a compassionate empath and terribly uncouth. A Real Pain left the fest with a reported $10 million Searchlight deal.
And then there’s Brief History of a Family, the feature debut of Jianjie Lin, which engages in suspenseful, thoughtful ways with the ramifications of China’s one-child policy. In it, a middle-class family of three is thrown for a loop when the son’s new friend slowly becomes an integral part of the household. Secrets, lies, envy, and unrealized yearnings unravel in this moody thriller, which is being distributed by Films Boutique.
Fight the power (or try to, anyway)
A still from Girls State by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine.
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A still from Girls State by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine.
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Stories about individuals contending with oppression were all over the festival this year, and quite a few stuck out for me. Girls State, a sort-of sequel to the 2020 Sundance hit documentary (and Grand Jury Prize-winner) Boys State, follows teen girls in Missouri who are participating in the annual week-long exercise of building their own democratic government. A couple of unique factors make Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s film, which is coming to Apple TV+ in April, notable: For one, its filming just so happened to coincide with the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on the right to abortion. It also depicts the first time both Boys and Girls State were hosted on the same campus – which makes the gender disparities between the two organizations impossible for the girls to ignore.
Another doc, Jazmin Renée Jones’ Seeking Mavis Beacon, is part investigation and part character study. Alongside Gen Z video artist Olivia McKayla Ross, Jones attempts to find Renée L’Espérance, the Black model who served as the face of the ’80s computer program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The film asks complex questions about how Blackness is used and distorted through technology, as well as what it means to dance around ethical boundaries while excavating history.
And a couple from the other side of the world: Kneecap, a loosely autobiographical origin story of the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap, bursts with verve, bite, and righteous rage that calls to mind early Spike Lee. (They insist on speaking and rapping in Irish to preserve the dying language, and in defiance of Britain.) The dynamic trio – Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí – play versions of themselves alongside Michael Fassbender as Bap’s revolutionary dad.
Then there’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Johan Grimonprez’s audacious and musical documentary deconstructing the confluence of events and political collusion that led to the assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. This includes how prominent Black jazz artists were deployed by the U.S. as ambassadors to unwittingly distract from the country’s nefarious behind-the-scenes dealings. The filmmaker’s stylistic approach is riveting, wielding the rhythmic language of Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Max Roach, and other jazz greats alongside the callous recounting of gleeful mercenaries and world leaders. Grimonprez and his editor Rik Chaubet also pull abundantly from an array of texts, archival footage and interviews, playing liberally with sound and imagery. There’s so much information to take in, but to their credit, it never becomes so overwhelming as to lose focus.
Adolescence is hard
Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza appear in My Old Ass by Megan Park.
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Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza appear in My Old Ass by Megan Park.
Shane Mahood/Sundance Institute
Another staple of Sundance is the quirky coming-of-age movie, and My Old Ass and Dìdi deliver plenty of humor and heart.
The former is a high-concept comedy about Elliott, a queer Canadian teen (the winsome Maisy Stella) who can’t wait to leave her family’s cranberry farm behind for college. One night, she and her best friends decide to experiment with mushrooms in the woods, and during her psychedelic trip she meets her older self, played by the always wonderful Aubrey Plaza. Filmmaker Megan Park’s second feature is just weird and charming enough to work as an ode to the sweet dumbness of youth and the sage wisdom of age. It was purchased at the festival for a reported $15 million by Amazon MGM for a theatrical release followed by an eventual streaming debut on Amazon Prime.
The latter, directed by Sean Wang, takes us back to 2008 – AOL Instant messenger, the early days of Facebook, the waning days of Myspace – through the eyes of Dìdi, aka Chris (Izaac Wang), a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy. It’s set during the summer before he transitions to high school, and as one might expect, it’s both cringey and relatable in how it depicts that awkward period where friendships are tested, hormones rage, and all parents do is nag, nag, nag (or so we kids think). It’s familiar territory, but the performances and attention to period-specific detail (especially as it pertains to the teen lingo) make for a great watch.
Music is healing
Luther Vandross appears in Luther: Never Too Much by Dawn Porter.
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Luther Vandross appears in Luther: Never Too Much by Dawn Porter.
Matthew Rolston/Sundance Institute
Finally, two music documentaries tapped into the emotional power of some of our greatest pop icons.
Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much is a celebration of the legendary singer Luther Vandross, chronicling his early career as a member of the group Listen My Brother to his final commercially successful comeback with Dance with My Father before his death at the age of 54. There’s lots of great archival footage here, including of Vandross working on musical arrangements for David Bowie’s “Fascination.” Many of Vandross’ collaborators, including Dionne Warwick and Richard Marx, sing his praises and – to an extent – discuss his public struggles with his ever-fluctuating weight and speculation around his sexuality. The doc sadly doesn’t go too deep on the latter issue for reasons that are explained through his close friends, only partly satisfyingly; nevertheless, by the end of the film it’s impossible not to be moved, quite possibly to tears.
A still from The Greatest Night in Pop by Bao Nguyen.
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A still from The Greatest Night in Pop by Bao Nguyen.
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Overlapping a little with the era of Vandross is Bao Nguyen’s The Greatest Night in Pop, which drops on Netflix quite soon – Jan. 29. The “greatest night” in question is the herculean undertaking of the star-studded recording of “We Are the World,” in the hours immediately following the 1985 American Music Awards. As far as Netflix docs go, this is one of the more entertaining ones; Lionel Richie is an executive producer and he’s all over it, telling funny stories about writing the song with Michael Jackson as well as the pressure to deflate all the competing egos in the room that evening.
Does it treat this charity single as if it was the second coming of Jesus? Kind of! Are there some noticeably absent talking heads? Yup! (No Stevie, Diana, or Quincy, though we do get lots of Kenny Loggins soundbites.) Do we ever find out what the heck Dan Aykroyd was doing there? Not really! No matter – this is a breezy, thoroughly enjoyable nostalgia trip.
Lifestyle
Vintage-obsessed millennial parents are driving L.A.’s booming kids’ clothing resale market
Kids’ vintage clothing sales are experiencing a remarkable boom at in-person markets and online, where prices for clothes for little ones have shot up on websites including Depop and Poshmark. Millennial parents are looking to outfit their kids in the clothes and TV and film characters they loved (or coveted) when they were kids.
The result? There’s a new generation of kiddos hitting the playground looking incredibly cool. Take Amari Case, a SoCal toddler who spent a Sunday afternoon this spring ambling around a vintage market in a West Hollywood warehouse clad in baggy jeans and a ’90s-era tee emblazoned with the “Dragon Ball Z” character Son Goku.
When she wasn’t scribbling on a Lorax coloring sheet, she’d been cruising around the market with her dad, Aaron Munoz Case, snapping up new pieces destined to make her the flyest kid at the preschool playground.
Neil Wright, from left, Kristine Nite Scalzo and Brandon Rosenblatt, co-founders of Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Showing off Amari’s new vintage satin L.A. Raiders jacket and tiny teal Grant Hill Detroit Pistons jersey, Munoz Case, who was also impeccably dressed, noted that while Amari went through a phase at about 18 months where she wanted to dress herself, eventually she gave up and went back to letting her dripped-out dad dictate her wardrobe.
Munoz Case found Amari’s first vintage piece at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and got the bug, going back every month to pick up something to add to his little’s wardrobe.
Trendspotters and researchers say Munoz Case isn’t alone in his quest. The market for kids’ vintage clothing has heated up precipitously over the last few years, perhaps hitting a boiling point in January when an Eeyore romper from the ’90s sold for over $3,000 on EBay. (It was new with tags, but one without tags still went for almost a grand about a month later.)
The thirst for tiny throwbacks is so popular that first-ever, all-kids market Elemeno — named after the “L-M-N-O” bit of “The Alphabet Song” and where Amari was toddling and shopping — drew 17 vendors and over 2,000 attendees over a single weekend in March. (There are plans for another Elemeno Kids Vintage Market pop-up later this year in New York, as well as plans to bring the event back to L.A. sometime next year.)
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1. Cameron Scalzo, wearing a vintage McDonald’s T-shirt from the ‘90s, and mom Kristine Nite Scalzo. 2. Cameron Scalzo rocks an Avirex jacket from the ‘90s.
Eye Speak Vintage’s Kristine Nite Scalzo, who co-organized the event and is opening an all-kids vintage store in Pasadena this month, says she fell under the kids vintage spell in 2020 when she was pregnant with her son. She’d always been a vintage shopper for herself, so she knew she wanted to pass the passion down to the next generation. She started filling up her son’s closet, and soon enough, she found herself selling her other finds out of a bodega in her garage.
She has a by-appointment space in Pasadena now, where she draws everyone from Rihanna’s stylist to out-of-town moms who make a point to stop by on their way to Disneyland. “The community around kids vintage has really skyrocketed on Instagram over the past six years,” Scalzo says. “We want to know who we’re buying from. We want to know that we’re doing good with buying secondhand. And it’s a hobby for people that can turn into a possible business on the side. Because knowing there’s a big group that’s interested in vintage kids clothes, you can always pass an item [your kid outgrows] to someone else or resell it.”
Scalzo says some parents are out digging through bins at the Goodwill Outlet looking for the perfect piece, while others are content to pay up for, say, a ’90s Simpsons T-shirt or a mini-size Harley-Davidson jacket. Scouring the racks at the Elemeno market, most pieces cost $15 to $40, though there were special pieces pulled to the side in some booths with price tags that could make a parent’s eyes pop. (Think $275 for a set of well-worn Spider-Man overalls from the ’00s or $150 for a pair of Cross Colours denim shorts from the ’90s.)
In kids and adult vintage alike, mint condition is highly valued. No matter the era in which they were raised, kids tend to be messy. They get strawberry juice on their shirts or scuff up the knees on their Bugle Boy jeans. Vintage kids clothes that look pristine are more expensive, and while plain kids clothes do sell, items with characters on them or cool prints tend to draw more attention and dollars.
Brandon Rosenblatt, another of the Elemeno organizers, says he’s had his eye on a specific kids “Back to the Future” shirt for some time, but notes that it typically sells for about $1,000. He’s partial to McKids clothes for his daughter, from McDonald’s short-lived kids clothing brand, noting that he’s even snagged her a vintage official McDonald’s-themed aloha shirt from Hawaii, something he says he’s never seen anywhere else.
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1. Siblings Amora and Milo Castilo wear vintage cowboy hats, jackets and chaps. 2. Thalia Castilo and her kids Amora and Milo.
Other collectors, he says, might be a little less obscure, leaning into mainstream characters such as Strawberry Shortcake or from ’80s and ’90s properties including “The Land Before Time” and “Rugrats.”
“A lot of millennials are having kids — like everyone who’s in their 30s and 40s — and they all want to put their kids in the same IP they grew up in,” Rosenblatt says.
“It’s the thrill of the hunt that gets everyone so excited,” Scalzo says. “Once you find that perfect nostalgic piece, you’re like ‘Holy s—,’ and you just want to chase that feeling again and again.”
Mia De La Rosa, a reseller who was at the Elemeno market, says that like Scalzo, she started buying kids vintage clothes when she was pregnant with her daughter, Liv, who’s 6 now, very into everything on PBS Kids and has a closet full of thrifted vintage garb covered in characters such as D.W., the annoying little sister from the ’90s show “Arthur.”
Everything Liv wears is “completely her style,” De La Rosa says. “She dresses herself every day and she gets compliments on what she’s wearing at school all the time.”
Other vintage-wearing kids — and in particular younger ones — might simply be sporting what their parents like or might just like the look of the shirt even if they don’t know what it’s advertising. (An 8-year-old boy at the Elemeno market, for instance, chose to wear a pristine T-shirt highlighting the ’90s Jim Carrey movie “The Mask” because it featured his favorite color: green.)
Derrick Broaster, a vintage enthusiast turned full-time reseller, says that while he chooses to put himself in clothes from the ’60s and ’70s, he outfits his two sons in clothes from the 2000s. (“How Bow Wow used to dress when he was a kid,” he says.)
Although his younger son tends to rebel against Broaster’s vintage picks, opting for whatever Spider-Man shoes happen to be in his eyeline, his older son has leaned in, letting his dad advise him on what vintage pieces could work and what would be the most stylish.
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1. Julian, left, and Javier Gutierrez show off their vintage clothing. Javier says his mom always tells him to keep his vintage outfits clean. 2. Mom Priscilla Guzman, clockwise, Dad Javier Gutierrez and sons Julian and Javier Gutierrez enjoy the vibe of vintage clothing. Guzman says she’s been buying and selling kids’ vintage since her oldest son was born eight years ago.
Rosenblatt says a good portion of what vintage finds he sees in the market now has returned to the U.S. from places in Central America and South America or Asia where those pieces were likely sent decades ago after they were donated or given away.
“There’s a real underbelly of this vintage game with rag houses getting access to bulk product overseas and letting people sort through it,” he says. “There are companies now that rip through 20, 30 or 40,000 pieces of vintage clothing a week. It’s a really interesting ecosystem.”
For many kids vintage sellers, finding their stock is just as fun and interesting as getting it back into consumers’ hands. “Anywhere we can find clothes, we’re there,” says Matthew Carlos, owner of Long Gone Youth. He started selling vintage clothes 11 years ago, when he was 15, switched to kids vintage at 20 and has spent the last six years scouring flea markets, websites and swap meets.
“The kids market is definitely growing,” he says, “but I still feel like we haven’t even gotten close to where we can go. It’s just getting popular now, but the more events [like Elemeno] we can do, the more it’ll go mainstream.” Even now, some major brands like Gap and OshKosh B’gosh have recognized the interest in some of their styles from the ’80s and ’90s, moving to re-release the looks in limited runs.
Jackie and Frank Oropeza with daughter Rumi Mae shop at Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Kids resale is also leaning into streetwear culture. Rosenblatt, who worked in the streetwear industry, says that he’s noticed that a good portion of those interested in kids vintage — particularly, male shoppers — tend to be fans of streetwear brands like Supreme, Fear of God Essentials and Bape. At Elemeno, for instance, a good portion of the parents we saw pushing strollers were well-dressed dads seemingly on solo missions, something you don’t always see at kid-centric events.
“I just want my son to feel like I did as a kid,” said Justin Nguyen, while watching his toddler, Jayden, play with bubbles. “I want him to be happy, carefree and joyful, and I want to be able to spend time with him. My mom and dad were always working, even on the weekends. Now that I’m a dad, taking my son out on weekends to do stuff like this just seems like a blessing.”
Author Julia Elliott won for her short story collection Hellions.
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Forrest Clonts/Tin House
Writer Julia Elliott has won this year’s Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Hellions. The award honors work by women and nonbinary authors in the U.S. and Canada.
Elliott, who also authored the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch and the short story collection The Wilds, is known for blending elements of Southern gothic horror, surrealism and fairy tale. Hellions, published in 2025, includes stories set against backdrops like a plague-stricken medieval convent, a feminist art colony, and small Southern towns.
“This eerie, eclectic, genre-leaping collection takes no half-measures; every sentence of Hellions crackles or crawls,” wrote the prize jury in a statement. “Here, human folly moves against a backdrop of horror and magic … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control.”
The prize, named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, awards $150,000 to one winner each year. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels by women and nonbinary authors are eligible.
This year’s finalists included Quiara Alegría Hudes (The White Hot), Lee Lai (Cannon), Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief), and Sonya Walger (Lion). They will each receive $12,500.
The Carol Shields Prize went to writer Canisia Lubrin in 2025.
You can listen to actor Donna Lynne Champlin read Elliott’s story “Hellion” on the Death, Sex & Money podcast here.
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