Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie appear in The Worst Person in the World.
By Vanessa Zimmer
The larger world wastes no time in spreading the thoughtful discoveries at the just-ended 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Among the mainstream film releases in February are four works introduced at the January Festival: documentaries on Bill Cosby, Kanye West, and the Boeing company — as well as a Norwegian fictional film on a young woman searching for her identity.
Joining the bunch is a 2021 Festival selection, Strawberry Mansion, with its inventive dreamscapes and futuristic plot.
Immerse yourself once again in the Festival, with the Sundance lineup below!
Director and comedian W. Kamau Bell takes an intimate look at the legacy of Black comedian and actor Bill Cosby, arguably one of America’s most beloved entertainers before he fell from grace after being accused by multiple women of sexually predatory behavior. The four-episode miniseries, introduced at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, is available on Showtime, starting January 30.
Everyone knows your own worst enemy is yourself. Except maybe Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young, attractive woman whose life looms ahead of her. She struggles through romantic and career choices over a four-year period in modern-day Oslo, as she tries to figure out just who she really is. This Norwegian film, which screened at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, is directed by Joachim Trier. It opens in theaters on February 4.
Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah first met Kanye West, then going by the name Ye, in 1998. They followed him, camera in hand, for 20 years, collaborating first on West’s 2004 video for “Through the Wire.” With oodles of unseen footage, Coodie & Chike directed this 2022 Festival film, which traces West’s trajectory to rap-music icon. The film launches February 16 on Netflix.
STRAWBERRY MANSION
In the not-so-distant future, the government taxes our dreams. (What’s more, the dreams brim with product placement ads!) Auditor James Preble (Kentucker Audley) drives to the country home of Bella Isadora (Penny Fuller), a quirky elderly woman who has stubbornly stored her dreams on VHS tapes in a giant library. Setting to work, Preble finds himself falling in love with Bella’s younger self. This colorful romantic fantasy, directed and written by Audley and Albert Birney — and which screened at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival — releases in select theaters around the country on February 18.
DOWNFALL: The Case Against Boeing
Director Rory Kennedy helms a documentary looking into whether a culture of negligence, cover-up, and the pursuit of profit at Boeing contributed to two deadly plane crashes. Two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in a period of just five months in late 2018/early 2019 killed 346 passengers. Netflix releases the 2022 Festival film on February 18.
