More Highlights from Sundance 2025
by Eric McClanahan
The Sundance Film Festival has been the staple of quality independent cinema in America since 1978. This year’s festival screened 94 feature-length films and 57 short films. Here are a couple of highlights from this year’s festival…
DIDN’T DIE
Meera Menon directs a script she co-wrote with Paul Gleason about a podcaster clinging to her ever-shrinking audience during a zombie apocalypse. Hiding her fear behind a disaffection that she fashions for clicks, we see Kiran Deol’s Vinita soften when she returns to her hometown to visit her brothers and perform a live recording of her 100th episode. While there she runs into her non-committal ex Vincent, played by prolific comic character actor George Basil, who has randomly found a baby. This new dynamic creates a renewed sense of community and purpose for Vinita, who goes from being content she “Didn’t Die” to choosing to “Survive” and even “Thrive.” Two years into the catastrophe, survivors have become accustomed to the “biters” sleeping through the daylight and only hunting at night, but when that status quo is upended, the danger level increases.
Filmed in black-and-white with a gorgeous score motif based on the jazz standard “Beautiful Dreamer,” Didn’t Die is a nod to Romero as well as a post-pandemic allegory for modern fans of the zombie survival genre.
RAINS OVER BABEL
This was by far my favorite film experience from Sundance this year. Written and directed by Gala del Sol, this Colombian offering is exuberant, jubilant, colorful, musical, whimsical, and unforgettable. Imagine if John Waters was given free reign over Quentin Tarantino’s characters and presented them through an AfroLatin lens.
People often talk about a movie having “everything” when it’s little more than drama, singing, and dancing. This movie actually has everything: drama, singing, dancing, kung fu fighting, a BDSM fantasy dungeon, drag queens, church, a talking lizard, and immortal barflies. I watched this movie with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes at the beauty on the screen. It’s people finding themselves and their tribe, and while this film surely isn’t for everyone, in a perfect world, it should be.
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Originally published at http://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on February 4, 2025.
