Following on from the overwhelming success of last year’s sophomore outing, American actor and director Robert Redford’s Sundance London film and music festival returns to the nation’s capital this month for its third incarnation, which takes place at the O2 Arena from 25-27 April.
As with 2013, the majority of the 21 feature-length films presented will be screened as UK premières, with programme highlights this time around including Irish director Lenny Abrahamson’s Michael Fassbender-starring oddity Frank, the Zellner brothers’ Berlinale favourite Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and last year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Fruitvale Station, which went on to win the Best First Film award at Cannes 2013. Also showing in its edited feature form will be Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip to Italy.
This year’s Sundance London will again explore the connection between independent film and music. Local group Archive have been announced as the first headlining music act for the 2014 festival, and tickets for that performance are now on sale. Several of the selected films, both documentaries and narrative, look at the power of music, and in conjunction with screenings of Finding Fela the festival will host a free set from Dele Sosimi, one of the original members of Fela Kuti’s band, alongside an Afrobeat orchestra. Elsewhere, The Art of Film Music panel will discuss the process of composing original music for films, with solo artist and former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker joining the Hybrid Vigour Documentary panel alongside former Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins.
Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute, had this to say about the 2014 programme: “That audiences in London have responded so positively to the films presented at the first two Sundance London festivals speaks to the power and universality of the stories told by our artists as well as the audience’s openness to exploring new ideas.”
The full feature lineup, including those from the Sundance collection, can be found below:
The Features
Axiom, dir. David Gambero
Blue Ruin, dir. Jeremy Saulnier
The Case Against 8, dir. Ben Cotner and Ryan White
Dinosaur 13, dir. Todd Miller
Drunktown’s Finest, dir. Sydney Freeland
Finding Fela, dir. Alex Gibney
Frank, dir. Lenny Abrahamson
Fruitvale Station, dir. Ryan Coogler
Hits, dir. David Cross
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, dir. David Zellner
Lambert & Stamp, dir. James D. Cooper
Little Accidents, dir. Sara Colangelo
Memphis, dir. Tim Sutton
Obvious Child, dir. Gillian Robespierre
They Came Together, dir. David Wain
The Trip to Italy, dir. Lenny Abrahamson
Under the Electric Sky, dir. Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz
The Voices, dir. Marjane Satrapi
From the Collection
Memento, dir. Christopher Nolan
Reservoir Dogs, dir. Quentin Tarantino
Winter’s Bone, dir. Debra Granik
Sundance London 2014 takes place at the O2 Arena from 25-27 April. For more of our coverage, follow this link.
