By Jessica Herndon
The 51st Telluride Film Festival kicks off tomorrow in Colorado, and we’re proud to see a great selection of Sundance-supported films in the mix this year. Three of the projects in the Telluride Film Festival lineup premiered during the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in January, while others were supported through Sundance Institute artist programs.
Whether the titles below were fashioned by fellows in our Screenwriters Lab, Directors Lab, Documentary Film Program, Catalyst program, or they debuted at the 2024 Festival, each project has an everlasting connection to our community. Check out the following films showing in Telluride, and learn more about the Institute initiatives mentioned above by clicking here.
ALOK — 2024 Sundance Film Festival
Logline: A compelling portrait of ALOK, acclaimed nonbinary author, poet, comedian, and public speaker. Executive-produced by Jodie Foster.
Apocalypse in the Tropics — Catalyst
Synopsis: When does a democracy end, and a theocracy begins? In Apocalypse in the Tropics, Petra Costa investigates the increasingly powerful grip that faith leaders hold over politics in Brazil. She gains extraordinary access to the country’s top political leaders, including President Lula and former President Bolsonaro, as well as to Brazil’s most famous televangelist: a larger-than-life pastor who plays the puppet master to the far-right leader. The film chronicles the profound role the evangelical movement has played in Brazil’s recent political turmoil, and it also grapples with the apocalyptic theology that drives the movement’s chief protagonists. As in her Academy Award–nominated The Edge of Democracy, Costa documents a time of profound confusion and despair with lucidity and a poetic eye. Weaving together past and present, she immerses us in the contradictory realities of a young democracy that is hanging on by a thread, and, in so doing, holds up a mirror to the rest of the world.
No Other Land — Documentary Film Program
Logline: For 10 years, Basel, a young Palestinian activist, has been filming homes in his community being destroyed by Israeli soldiers. During the darkest period of his life, in the face of mass eviction of his community, he develops an unlikely, intimate relationship with a similarly aged Israeli journalist who joins his struggle.
Santosh — Screenwriters Lab, Directors Lab
Logline: A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.
The Outrun — 2024 Sundance Film Festival
Logline: After living life on the edge in London, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. She returns to the wild beauty of Scotland’s Orkney Islands — where she grew up — hoping to heal. Adapted from the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot.
Will & Harper — 2024 Sundance Film Festival
Logline: When Will Ferrell finds out his close friend of 30 years is coming out as a trans woman, the two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship, transition, and America.
