Sundance 2010: Movies that Matter

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival held last week in Utah rallied around a single word: rebel. But the Sundance award winners were far from adolescent. They offered creative explorations of pressing challenges: education, equality and the environment. For the next wave of filmmakers, rebellion results in movies that matter.

• Winter’s Bone won best film and best screenplay in the U.S. Dramatic competition. It is a haunting descent into the Ozarks, where meth addiction has replaced family farming. Yet, 17-year-old Rhee Jessup resists the temptation to despair, daring to take care of the next generation, and passing along essential survival skills.

• The “Audience Award” for best documentaries went to two remarkably hopeful looks at broken systems. Waiting for Superman explores America’s public schools. It puts compelling faces and names to the statistics. Director Davis Guggenheim challenges the teachers’ unions that protect and even reward indifference. Waiting for Superman argues for relevant school reform.

• In Waste Land, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz travels to the massive Jardim Gramacho landfill outside Rio de Janeiro. Muniz focuses upon the catadors, digging through garbage in search of recyclable material. Wasteland proves that art can arise out of refuse, insisting that no one is disposable.

• A Small Act demonstrates the tangible difference one person can make. A Holocaust survivor, Hilde Back, decided to support a student in Kenya. That student, Chris Mburu, eventually went to Harvard and became a human rights lawyer for the United Nations. Hilde’s small act sets off a chain of giving that continues in the same Kenyan village today.

• A special Jury Prize went to the timely doc, GasLand It offers a humorous take on a serious subject—the complications from relentless drilling for natural gas. The controversial practice of “fracking” has spoiled precious water aquifers and threatened rural homes. By the time director Josh Fox discovers flammable kitchen sinks, audiences will conclude that natural gas is too costly for the environment.

• Sundance 2010 also showcased civil rights pioneers. In 1961, a diverse group of college students boarded a Greyhound bus through the Deep South. A bomb stopped their bus, but could not stop their movement. Freedom Riders remembers these “everyday heroes” and uncovers historic footage long hidden by the F.B.I.

• Bhutto celebrates the first Muslim woman elected as prime minister of Pakistan. It follows the complex story of her family, the fractious history of a nation, and the remarkable rise of Benazhir Bhutto. Her journey from the embodiment of hope to assassinated martyr stirs the soul.

• Three jarring Sundance films expose the human cost of the war on terror. Restrepo is an outpost in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan named after fallen PFC Juan Restrepo. Journalist Sebastian Junger (of The Perfect Storm) spent a year embedded with a U.S. Army platoon. Restrepo captures the visceral feeling of combat, including the chaos, the fear, and the humor needed to survive. It won the Grand Jury Prize as best American documentary.

• The Tillman Story chronicles the tragic death of former Arizona Cardinal safety, Pat Tillman, via friendly fire. Pat’s family unmasks how the U.S. Army turned an embarrassing episode into a false story of heroism. Such blatant propaganda makes the righteous anger boil.

• The Dry Land focuses upon a returning soldier’s painful reentry to American soil. Ryan O’Nan offers a riveting performance as James, a combat vet suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. James cannot reconnect with his faithful wife (played by America Ferrera) or his compassionate friends. The specter of Vietnam hangs over The Dry Land, reminding us that we cannot afford to abandon the soldiers’ who fight on our behalf.

Thanks to Sundance filmmakers for these cautionary tales designed to wake us from slumber and propel us into action.