This Year’s Sundance Has No Get Out Breakout Smash, Instead Real Life Dominates: Mister Rogers, Secret Online Lives and $50 Million Art Deals Steal the Show

PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Film Festival ended its 10 day run with a dearth of breakout movies or record breaking acquisitions (no Call Me By Your Name or Get Out), but the Festival was characterized by few bombs and a number of very good films. 

The 2018 Grand Jury dramatic prize was awarded to The Miseducation of Cameron Post  the story of a teenage girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is outed as a lesbian and sent to a gay conversion therapy center by her evangelical aunt. Kailash, a tough-to-watch documentary about one man’s quest to end child slavery, nabbed the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary.

Audience awards went to Burden, a drama about a brain-washed Klu Klux Klansman (Garrett Hedland) who goes against his beliefs, and The Sentence, a portrait of the heartbreaking effect of mandatory minimum prison sentencing. Sentence was acquired by HBO and will screen later this year. 

Many of the best films of this year’s Sundance are real-life stories. Here are three outstanding documentaries that emerged as the buzz-attracting winners of the storied movie bonanza: 

The Price of Everything

The Price of Everything, which acquired before the Festival started, chronicles the sky rocketing price of contemporary art and how art has become an investment commodity. Those who make, sell, buy and study art are interviewed and the art and the galleries featured are simply spectacular.

The film focuses on the countdown to one of Sotheby’s main contemporary art auctions though strangely it rambles a bit after the auction is over. Stefan Edlis, a world-class collector, talks about buying paintings for $50 million without batting an eye. Painters talk about the pressure on them to preserve their brand and desire for their paintings to be displayed in museums rather than in a private collection. 

Whether you are knowledgeable about the art business or a neophyte, this documentary is informative and absorbing albeit slightly too long. HBO plans to premiere this film later this year.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is a documentary by Oscar winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom ) on former PBS star, Fred Rogers. I knew it was going to be a mega hit when the film’s Houston producers Debbie McLeod and Jay Sears — who have produced or invested in more than 30 films at Sundance — said that this is one of their best films. My second clue that it was special was the line stretching out of the heated waiting area into 15 degree weather.

The film is a nostalgic, tender and wistful look at Fred Rogers during his 30 year tenure (1968 to 2001) at PBS. The film includes archival footage of his early shows, his testifying before the Senate to obtain funds for PBS, and the touching way he explained topics like death, Robert Kennedy’s assassination and even 9/11 to children in a way that they could understand.  Fred Rogers had a significant impact on race relations by featuring various African-American characters in the show at a time when that was not done.

His wife of 51 years is interviewed as are his two sons who seem nothing like him. One of them says, “It was hard to have the second Christ as your father.”

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is featured prominently as he did in Fred Rogers’ life. In the Q&A afterword, Nicholas Ma, one of the film’s producers stated that his father learned how to be a celebrity from his friendship with Mr. Rogers. The documentary was not all celebratory, and captured Mr. Rogers’ frustration with toys that were pro-violence and suggested an underlying pathos that he perhaps covered up with his gentleness, idealism and wonderful sense of humor.

About halfway through the film you could hear sniffles in the audience and by the end of the film there was not a dry eye. I’m not sure if we were crying for our lost youth or a time when there were someone on TV to give us the big hug that the world needs right now.

In the Q&A someone asked producer Ma “where is the next Mr. Rogers?” He replied that we all can be the next Mr. Rogers to each other by being a good neighbor. The film was bought by Focus Films and will be released June 8.

Search

Search is the story of Margot, a high school girl who goes missing. Her mother died two years earlier, and her father David, in dealing with his grief, had shut down to her. He had learned little about her and her friends, and so he now must try to help the police by accessing her online accounts on the Internet.

The camera’s eye is a computer, and the film is shot through that eye. Through David’s Internet search of Margot’s social media websites, the story unfolds as both a thriller with twists, turns and clues.  And what a story it is, full of twists, turns and clues.

Several underlying messages surface as David and the police search for Margot. How well do you know your children? How much of their life takes place online? And who can they — and you — trust?

I won’t spoil the ending except to say that the storyteller’s talent keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. The movie, made by a 27-year-old former Google employee, is such a sleeper that it was not assigned to the general dramatic category of films. Instead, it went to a low-budget section for innovative projects and beginning filmmakers.

Of course, this is what Sundance is all about: discovering the independent film. I predict that this film will find a large audience. Sony Pictures bought the film for $5 million. No release date has been set yet.