The Sundance Film Festival has announced the 112 feature-length independent films that will be screened in Salt Lake City January 24–February 3, 2019.
Playwrights including Suzan-Lori Parks, Paul Downs Colaizzo, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are among the writers whose films will premiere at Sundance in a lineup that includes performances by a roster of stage actors Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz, Olivier Award-winning Harry Potter star Noma Dumezweni, Danielle Brooks, Adam Driver, John Lithgow, Judith Light, Mandy Patinkin, Jim Parsons, and more. Here are some of the many movies featuring theatre faves.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, about the longtime girlfriend of serial killer Ted Bundy who refused to believe he was guilty of his crimes, will feature Jim Parsons, Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Joel Osment, Kaya Scodelario, and John Malkovich.
Judith Light, Mandy Patinkin, Alec Baldwin, and Mike Colter will be featured in Before You Know It, a new comedy from screenwriters Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock about sisters who unravel a lie in the the wake of their father’s death.
Troupe Zero, about a Georgia teen who has the chance to be recorded on NASA’s Golden Record, has lined up a cast including Viola Davis, Mckenna Grace, Jim Gaffigan, Mike Epps, Charlie Shotwell, and Allison Janney.
Velvet Buzzsaw, a new thriller from director-screenwriter Dan Gilroy set within the Los Angeles contemporary art world, stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, and Natalia Dyer.
A female prison executioner experiences a life-changing emotional conflict in the world premiere of Clemency, starring Alfre Woodard, Aldis Hodge, Richard Schiff, Wendell Pierce, Richard Gunn, and Danielle Brooks.
Norbert Leo Butz will star alongside Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer in JC Lee’s Luce, about parents who make an alarming discovery about the adopted son they always idealized.
Native Son, the world-premiere film by Pulitzer winner Suzan-Lori Parks, reimagines Richard Wright’s novel about a young African-American man who takes a job working for a wealthy Chicago theatre.
Mindy Kalling wrote the screenpay for Late Night, about a female talk show host (Emma Thompson) who finds her work life upended when she hires her first female writer (Kaling).
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s film The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, about a 13-year-old Malawi boy whose invention save them from famine, will-co-star Noma Dumezweni, and Ejiofor.
Steven Soderbergh produces Scott Z. Burns, The Report, about journalist Daniel Jones whose study broke open the brutal truth about the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. The cast will feature Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Ted Levine, Maura Tierney, and Michael C. Hall.
