We’re happy to report that after five days, all of our New Years Resolutions are still intact. Except for the one about doing 20 minutes of yoga in the morning. Impossible. And the one about not eating the entire bag of potato chips in one sitting. Yeah, nah. Oh! We also didn’t stop doomscrolling, smoking or clipping our toenails at the gym. But other than that? Perfectly on track. And while there are still two long months of awards season left to endure enjoy, the New Year has brought a bountiful crop of Don’t-Miss Indies.

 

THE LADY BIRD DIARIES

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Hulu

Director: Dawn Porter

Why We’re Excited: Acclaimed documentarian Dawn Porter’s moving new documentary offers a singular vantage point on of the most important administrations in US history, based on 123 hours of former First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson’s own audio diaries. After working on the four-part docuseries Bobby Kennedy for President and the 2020 feature John Lewis: Good Trouble, Porter was thrilled to have an opportunity to study the 1960s through a new lens. Mere days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, a close aide suggested that Lady Bird start recording her observations of presidential life on a regular basis. Over the next five years, in her own voice, she would capture what she saw, heard and thought—with great detail and insight—as her husband, President Lyndon B. Johnson, presided over a period of unprecedented social and political upheaval.

 

 

GOOD GRIEF

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Netflix

Director: Dan Levy

Cast: Dan Levy, Ruth Negga, Himesh Patel, Luke Evans

Why We’re Excited: Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy’s feature directorial debut is a dramedy of love, loss, great friendship and grief. When his famous writer husband Oliver (Evans) is killed in a car accident, artist Marc (Levy, who also wrote the script) finds his life turned upside down in an instant. Helping him through the pain of rebuilding his life are his two BFFs: costume designer Sophie (Negga, a Film Independent Spirit Awards winner for 2021’s Passing) and Thomas (Patel, a Spirit Award nominee for HBO’s Station Eleven), an ex-boyfriend who still clearly pines for him. When Marc discovers that Luke had kept a secret apartment in Paris—a place now belonging to Marc—the best friends accompany him on a weekend getaway to the City of Love.

 

 

ANSELM

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Wim Wenders

Why We’re Excited: Shot in 3-D at a 6K resolution, German New Wave icon Wim Wenders’ (a 1988 Spirit Award winner for Wings of Desire) arresting new documentary captures the life and work of German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. Shot over the course of two years in Germany, France and Italy, the film traces Kiefer’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France. The film premiered last year at Cannes, with stylized reenactments of key moments in Kiefer’s life featuring Wenders’ own son, Daniel, as a young Anselm. The film spans five decades and examines the artist’s life, inspiration, myth and legacy.

 

 

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Netflix

Director: J.A. Bayona

Cast: Enzo Vogrincic, Simon Hempe, Matías Recalt, Rafael Federman

Why We’re Excited: After three successive English-language projects including Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel series, Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona returns to his native tongue with Society of the Snow—Spain’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature. The survival thriller is based on the true story of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team. When an Air Force charter carrying the squad crashes onto a glacier in the heart of the Andes en route to a match in Chile, the survivors (29 out of 45) must endure subzero temperatures, starvation, injuries and avalanches for a staggering 72 days before help finally arrives. Aside from filming at the actual crash site as well as other parts of the Andes in both Chile and Argentina, the film was also shot in Spain and the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. Not only did research materials include 100+ hours of interviews from those directly involved, but the actors also had contact with survivors and family members to prepare for their roles. Here’s our in-person conversation after last year’s Film Independent Presents screening of the film, with Bayona, actor Enzo Vogrincic, cinematographer Pedro Luque, composer Michael Giacchino and real-life crash survivor Roberto Canessa.

 

 

SOME OTHER WOMAN

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited)

Director: Joel David Moore

Cast: Amanda Crew, Tom Felton, Ashley Greene

Why We’re Excited: Actor-director Joel David Moore’s fourth feature, this psychological thriller—from Josh Long’s original screenplay—follows Eve (Crew, from HBO’s Silicon Valley), who moves to a remote tropical paradise for (supposedly) a few months with husband Peter (Felton, from Harry Potter franchise) for his job. But while Peter is eager to settle into their surroundings and build a new life together, Eve begins to feel that something is, well… off. As months turn to years, Eve finds herself still trapped on the island, as another woman (Greene) gradually pushes her way into the frame. Since both women share more than a few physical similarities, Eve start to have trouble separating fact from paranoid imagination. And things get even worse when the other woman seemingly begins to take over Eve’s life, piece by piece…

SELF RELIANCE

When You Can Watch: January 12

Where You Can Watch: Hulu

Director: Jake Johnson

Cast: Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Morales, Mary Holland, Andy Samberg

Why We’re Excited: Actor-turned-filmmaker Jake Johnson’s (The New Girl, The Mummy) feature directorial debut, this comparatively lighthearted riff on The Most Dangerous Game follows Tommy, whose life changes dramatically when celebrity Simple Minds parodist Andy Samberg (playing himself) invites him into a limo out of the blue. His mission? To outwit a number of hunters who will for an entire month be trying to kill him. If he survives, he’ll win a million dollars. But only if he survives. When Tommy figures out that the hunters can only attack him when he’s alone, he tries to convince his friends and family to stick by him—literally—24/7. Problem is: no one believes him! No one, that is, except for fellow game participant Maddy (Anna Kendrick). The comedy thriller was acquired by Hulu after its raucous premiere at last year’s SXSW.

 

 

EXPATS

When You Can Watch: January 26

Where You Can Watch: Amazon Prime

Director: Lulu Wang

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ji-Young Yoo, Sarayu Blue, Jack Huston, Brian Tee

Why We’re Excited: A Spirit Award Best Feature (!) winner for her autobiographical 2019 dramedy The Farewell, Chinese-American filmmaker Lulu Wang’s first episodic series is set in Hong Kong and based on the 2016 novel The Expatriates, by Janice Y.K. Lee. The six-part miniseries follows a group of close-knit and affluent expats in Hong Kong, where wealth, success and personal loss are flaunted publicly in equal measure. All Americans, Margaret (Kidman) and Hilary (Blue) are married women with tragic pasts, while Mercy (Yoo) is fresh out of college. When the three lives collide, dark secrets unravel to threaten their seemingly idyllic lives.

 

 

MILLER’S GIRL

When You Can Watch: January 26

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Jade Halley Bartlett

Cast: Martin Freeman, Jenna Ortega, Gideon Adlon, Bashir Salahuddin, Dagmara Domińczyk

Why We’re Excited: Premiering next week at the Palm Springs International Film Festival before its theatrical release, writer-director Jade Halley Bartlett’s directorial debut was ranked on the 2016 Black List. Talented young writer Cairo (Ortega, from Netflix’s Wednesday) is in a creative writing class under Professor Miller (Freeman, Black Panther, BBC’s Sherlock)—himself a failed writer. Cairo attempts to use an assignment as a tool to seduce her prof into crossing the line. But even though there’s an attraction between them, Miller rejects her advances. Unfortunately, this quickly unleashes Cairo’s nasty side… Originally written as a play, Bartlett’s spec script was first acquired by Seth Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures in 2016, before Lionsgate picked up distribution.

 

 

SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING

When You Can Watch: January 26

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Rachel Lambert

Cast: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje, Parvesh Cheena

Why We’re Excited: Based on a 2013 play and subsequent short by co-writer Stefanie Abel Horowitz, director Lambert’s (In the Radiant City) sophomore outing is a workplace romantic dramedy, which premiered at last year’s Sundance. Stuck in a rut and sick of her banal corporate life, Fran (Star Wars’ Ridley, who produces here) passes time at work daydreaming, coming up interesting ways to die. Things begin to change when new coworker Robert (Merheje) finally connects with Fran and begins to pull the recluse out of her bubble of self-isolation.

 

 

*PROGRAMMER’S PICK* GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT

When You Can Watch: January 8

Where You Can Watch: HBO, Max

Director: Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson

Why We’re Excited: From Jenn Wilson, Film Independent Senior Programmer: “A 2024 Spirit Award nominee for Best Documentary Film, Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, is a beautiful exploration of the poet, her life and her work. Often, biographical documentaries don’t seem to go deep enough to hold our interest, but this film is so tuned in to its subject matter that you never feel emotionally separated from her. Frankly, Giovanni’s poetry (and the way she reads it) is a very cinematic experience, in and of itself. Her readings are dramatic and really always go back and capture the original energy of the poems—words hitting with the same power they did when she originally wrote them during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the ’60s and ’70s. The film weaves contemporary footage with archival material; her past conversations with James Baldwin are particularly fascinating. People who are Giovanni fans will remember how much they love her, while people unfamiliar with her work will quickly see why she’s the celebrated artist that she is today, at age 81. An experience as much as it is a film, Brewster and Stephenson have made a movie about Giovanni that matches her vibrancy and brilliance, and that is no small feat.”

 

 

KEY

Film Independent Fellow or Member

Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A

Microbudget

Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color

Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee

Female Filmmaker

LGBT Filmmaker or Lead LGBT Characters

First-time Filmmaker

(Header: Some Other Woman)