52 Tuesdays is premiering in the World Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The film follows 16-year-old Billie’s reluctant path to adulthood, which is accelerated when her mother announces plans to gender transition—and to send Billie to live with her father, limiting their time together to Tuesday afternoons. Shot in real time once a week, every week, for an entire year, 52 Tuesdays is a unique film that brings a raw authenticity to its themes of desire, responsibility, and transformation. An Australian production directed by Sophie Hyde (producer, Shut Up Little Man!: An Audio Misadventure), the film stars Del Herbert-Jane and Tilda Cobham-Hervey.
Also premiering in the World Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival is The Disobedient, the first feature from Serbian director Mina Djukic. Featuring rising stars Hana Selimovic and Mladen Sovilj, the film tells the story of Leni and Lazar, estranged childhood friends who are unexpectedly reunited when Lazar returns home for his father’s funeral. In an effort to escape the doldrums of adult life in present-day Serbia, Leni and Lazar embark on an impromptu bicycle trip across the countryside. Their shared rebellion against social expectation is euphoric, but eventually Leni is forced to wonder if such a bond is enough for her to build a life on.
Memphis, the second feature film by Tim Sutton (Pavilion), premieres in the NEXT section at the Sundance Film Festival. Starring iconoclastic R&B musician Willis Earl Beal—who also scored the film—Memphis is a lyrical character study that borders on the metaphysical, charting Beal’s character’s descent towards madness as he drifts through the legendary city. Toeing the line between the real and the surreal, Memphis is a film steeped in music, folklore, and an abstract search for glory.
War Story, starring Catherine Keener, will also premiere in the NEXT section at the Sundance Film Festival. Keener plays Lee, a war photographer struggling to recover after being held hostage in Libya. Instead of returning home to New York upon being freed, Lee detours to Sicily, where her former mentor and lover Albert (Ben Kingsley) lives, and shuts herself in a hotel room to weather her PTSD on her own terms. But even as she attempts to distance herself from her experiences, a young refugee (Hafsia Herzi) appears in her midst, and desperately needs her help. Lee is forced to confront her formidable demons in order to reach out and make a human connection in the wake of both the personal and universal horrors of war. War Story is the second film in director Mark Jackson’s Island trilogy; his first film, Without, won numerous awards including an Independent Spirit Award. •
