The 2024 edition of the Sundance Film Festival happens January 18-28 in Park City, UT, and they’ve just announced this year’s lineup. This is the 40th edition of Sundance, and as usual, among the 91 films — chosen from 17,000 submissions! — officially screening there are a number of music documentaries on the slate.
Subjects range from rap to new wave, jazz, an iconic traveling ’90s festival, and an unusual film about one of one of the most forward-thinking artists of the last 50 years. There’s also fictionalized origin film about Irish rappers Kneecap (co-starring Michael Fassbender). Here they are with Sundance’s descriptions:
- As We Speak: Bronx rap artist Kemba explores the growing weaponization of rap lyrics in the United States criminal justice system and abroad — revealing how law enforcement has quietly used artistic creation as evidence in criminal cases for decades.
- DEVO: Born in response to the Kent State massacre, new wave band Devo took their concept of “de-evolution” from cult following to near–rock star status with groundbreaking 1980 hit “Whip It” while preaching an urgent social commentary.
- Eno: Visionary musician and artist Brian Eno — known for producing David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, among many others; pioneering the genre of ambient music; and releasing over 40 solo and collaboration albums — reveals his creative processes in this groundbreaking generative documentary: a film that’s different every time it’s shown. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit and creative technologist Brendan Dawes have developed a bespoke generative software designed to sequence scenes and create transitions out of Hustwit’s original interviews with Eno, and Eno’s rich archive of hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage, and unreleased music. Each screening of Eno is unique, presenting different scenes, order, music, and meant to be experienced live.
- Kneecap: There are 80,000 native Irish speakers in Ireland. 6,000 live in the North of Ireland. Three of them became a rap group called Kneecap. This anarchic Belfast trio becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save the mother tongue. Bursting forth from an often unpredictable and raucous post-Troubles Belfast, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh leap onto the screen to play themselves in this heightened and wildly entertaining tale of Kneecap’s origins, with Michael Fassbender in tow as the charismatic father-figure turned political martyr.
- LOLLA: THE STORY OF LOLLAPALOOZA: In the summer of ’91, the Lollapalooza music festival was born. What started as a farewell tour for the band Jane’s Addiction rose from the underground to launch a cultural movement and change music forever. Michael John Warren, veteran filmmaker behind acclaimed story-driven documentaries and innovative concert films, brings a deft understanding of music and culture to his Sundance Film Festival debut, Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza. The untethered energy of 1990s American youth counterculture finds focus in roiling mosh pits, raging to artists like Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, and Sonic Youth, and gaining exposure to social activism, political art, and alternative circuses. A wealth of archival footage from audience and band perspectives leads to an immersive experience akin to the festival itself, touching on behind-the-scenes machinations as much as the impact of music previously out of reach to its listeners.
- Luther: Never Too Much: Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and more. His undeniable talent earned platinum records and accolades, but he struggled to break out beyond the R&B charts. Intensely driven, he overcame personal and professional challenges to secure his place amongst the greatest vocalists in history. If you know, you know— there’s only one Luther. Acclaimed festival alum Dawn Porter invites audiences on a musical journey into the life of the iconic Luther Vandross, the man with the soulful velvet voice.
- Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat: In 1960, United Nations: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe denouncing America’s color bar, while the U.S. dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo to deflect attention from its first African post-colonial coup. Director Johan Grimonprez (Double Take, 2009) returns to Sundance with this magnificent essay film that vibrantly embodies the historic and continually evolving colonial machinations that underpin what author and Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane refers to as an ever-evolving “algorithm of Congo Inc.”
There is obviously lots more at Sundance 2024, with films starring Kristen Stewart, Saoirse Ronan, Steven Yeun, Pedro Pascal, Jesse Eisenberg, John Early, Jason Schwartzman, David Schwimmer, and more. Some films will stream online in addition to in-person screenings in Park City. Learn more and peruse the full 2024 Sundance lineup here.
