The temperature may be dropping outside as fall gives way to winter, but as many of the year’s most critically acclaimed films hit theatres, the awards race is beginning to heat up in the film industry.
Sudbury Indie Cinema is excited to be offering a full slate of highly touted awards hopefuls throughout the month of December as well as some nostalgic holiday favourites and special events to enjoy with the whole family.
A new Yorgos Lanthimos film is always a treat. Following up on the riotously successful Poor Things which garnered Emma Stone her second best actress Academy Award win, the Greek auteur and his muse once again team up for their fifth collaboration in Bugonia, a dark comedy about two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap a pharmaceutical CEO, convinced she is an alien set on destroying Earth.
Bugonia is one of Lanthimos’ most accessible films, boasting some career-best work from Jesse Plemons and a final act that is as memorable and flat-out bonkers (in the best way) as you will see all year.
Kelly Reichardt, one of America’s most prominent Indie filmmakers (First Cow, Showing Up) , has given us a gem of a film with The Mastermind, starring Josh O’Connor as a deadbeat carpenter in 1970 Massachusetts who orchestrates a daylight art museum heist.
Those familiar with Reichardt’s minimalist slow cinematic aesthetic will be intrigued by her addition to the heist movie genre. The result is an enthralling character study with one of the best young actors in the business at the center of it all set against the backdrop of societal change and growing disillusionment during the Vietnam War.
A trio of Best Picture contenders from around the world also open this month at The Indie. Back in May, Iranian master Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, cementing it as a major player in the Oscar race.
Panahi’s courageous filmmaking criticizing the authoritarian regime in his native Iran has led to his imprisonment and the themes of the trauma of imprisonment, revenge and morality are at the forefront of his latest film, one of his best to date.
In 2021, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, put the world on notice that a new international auteur had arrived with his highly acclaimed film, The Worst Person in the World, starring Renate Reinsve. Trier and Reinsve return four years later with another incredible collaboration in Sentimental Value, a comedy-drama about two daughters, estranged from their filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgård in some career-best work) and their attempt to find familial healing from past wounds.
From Scandinavia to South America, Brazil follows up its massive success of last year’s I’m Still Here, with the thematically adjacent neo-noir political thriller The Secret Agent. Directed by Kleber Mendonҫa Filho (Bacurau), the film stars Wagner Moura (Narcos) as a fugitive scientist, Marcelo, who tries to escape the country's military dictatorship in 1977 with the help of an underground resistance network. Moura’s performance won him the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
Aside from new critically acclaimed films, there’s plenty of holiday nostalgia to enjoy as well with another Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat-Cereal Retro Cartoon event planned as well as screenings of the holiday classics Home Alone, celebrating it’s 35th anniversary this year, an encore screening of SOAR Film Fest audience favourite Folktales, and the iconic Die Hard (yes, it is a Christmas movie!).
Sudbury Indie Cinema has brought back Holiday Ticket Packs, which make a great Christmas stocking stuffer. Get yours for your friends and family and enjoy the gift of some of the best cinema has to offer this year. Happy holidays everyone and we will see you at the Indie. Yippee Ki-Yay!
Jason Tripp is a cinephile about town and the chair of the Sudbury Indie Cinema board of directors.