Artists are breaking barriers at Sundance

By: Omonike Akinyemi

Contributing Writer

This year’s Sundance Film Festival sported several films that broke the mold in terms of content and daring looks at diverse cultures.  

The festival put diversity at its core, allowing indie filmmakers of all cultures, ethnicities and genders to shine. For example, Hari Sama’s “This is not Berlin” is a touching drama of youth in Mexico City.

These youth come of age in an 80s era riddled with social restriction and intolerance. Their only outlet into self-discovery, away from trifling high school gang fights and a sheltered suburban lifestyle, comes from diving into a gay scene filled with artists on the edge.

This young high school boy and his best friend make a journey into a world filled with drugs, punk rock music and fringe artists that awakens their senses and challenges the beliefs their parents have ingrained in them.  

“There are moments in the film that just make you cringe,” said one audience member.

Another audience member, a documentary filmmaker, remarked that the film made him discover a modern Mexico far from the “sensationalized criminality” of popular media about Latin America.

The film director gave audiences a front seat into an underground world, one they intuitively felt may eat up the main characters before it implodes into itself.  

“This is not Berlin” makes viewers question what it is to belong to a group. Does loyalty trump your own inhibitions? Is it only the people on the edge that can make a nation bend to re-examine its own inner self?

This film, like film director Chinonye Chukwu’s “Clemency,” dares to delve into terrain that may sit uncomfortably with viewers.  

“Clemency” takes a real look at the psyche of a prison warden and executioner, played by Aldre Woodard.

A potentially innocent black man is sentenced to death, but the previous week’s botched execution of a Hispanic man threatens the executioner’s resolve to commit the execution again.

The film had the audience at the edge of its seat, utilizing dramatic tension that unfolds in every corner as they see the prison warden’s own home life and relationship unravel.

The film left some audience members wanting more, “I couldn’t believe I was in there two hours just to see the crocodile tears…” said one woman. “I feel that the crime of capital punishment was left unpunished,” she stated.  

A young volunteer, stated, “I was really glad to see the film get an award and especially excited to see a young Black women get an award.”  

Honored with the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize award, “Clemency,” a film by an African-American filmmaker was one of many.

The film “Last Black Man in San Francisco,” directed by Jo Talbot was the winner of the US Dramatic directing award that spoke to issues of diversity, gentrification and nationhood at Sundance 2019.