Artificial intelligence shares the bill with Kristen Stewart and Pedro Pascal at the Sundance festival

The film festival created by Robert Redford takes place from January 18 to 28, 2024 in the Utah resort at more than 2,000 meters above sea level. On the program, 90 independent films and documentaries that deal with the theme of AI.

The Sundance independent film festival begins this Thursday, January 18 in the United States, for an edition where the emergence of artificial intelligence, addressed by several filmmakers, will share the spotlight with stars like Kristen Stewart and Pedro Pascal.

Co-founded by actor Robert Redford, this event is being held until January 28 in the mountains of Utah (west), at more than 2,000 meters above sea level. It constitutes an essential launch platform for many independent films and documentaries, seeking broadcasters.

Among the 90 productions selected this year, the upheavals linked to AI occupy a special place, just a few months after having largely contributed to the strikes which paralyzed Hollywood, where actors and screenwriters feared being replaced by robots.

The documentary Love Machina for example, follows the efforts of a couple to perpetuate the love that binds them beyond their death, by transferring their consciousness to a humanoid. Its director Peter Sillen considers himself “lucky” that the completion of this project, started in 2017, coincides with “public awareness of AI”, propelled to the forefront by the progress of conversational robots like ChatGPT.

Another documentary, Eternal Youdelves into the opaque and flourishing world of start-ups that tackle the mourning market, by offering to converse with avatars capable of mimicking a deceased loved one thanks to an AI based on their memories.

Two films with Kristen Stewart

On the fiction side, the ex-star of Twilight Kristen Stewart is starring in “two of the most talked about films at the festival”, warns programming director Kim Yutani.

In Love Lies Bleeding, the actress plays a weight room manager who falls in love with a bisexual bodybuilder. A love story put to the test by a series of violent events. She also plays in Love Mea film mysteriously presented as an online romance between “a buoy and a satellite” in a post-human world.

Thursday evening, the festival will open with the screening of Freaky Taleswith actor Pedro Pascal starring in a series of stories set on the same day in 1987. A tale in which punk teenagers, skinheads, a rap battle and a basketball star intersect.

Another highly anticipated film, the comedy Thelma features a grandmother embarked on an anthology of action, in a third age version of the series Impossible mission. “Hopefully we will be distributed by someone who will allow us to appear in theaters first, then on streaming,” said lead actress June Squibb, 93.

Sundance darlings, directors Steven Soderbergh and Richard Linklater come to defend their latest projects. The first sign Presencea scary thriller with Lucy Liu in a haunted suburban house, while the second offers a portrait of her hometown in the documentary series God Save Texas.

Japan and American democracy

In addition to artificial intelligence, the documentaries once again deal with very diverse themes this year, ranging from the late emergence of the #MeToo movement in Japan to the future of American democracy. War Game thus follows an exercise between senior intelligence officers and American politicians, who submit to a role play to imagine their management of a coup d’état after a contested presidential election. In the middle of an election year, “it is certainly disturbing to know that games can be very close to reality”, said the new festival director, Eugene Hernandez.

Another chronicle of American society, Will & Harper follows the coming out of a transgender woman who travels across the country. Finally, the Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, leading figure in the movement which made it possible to reform the Japanese penal code to broaden the definition of rape, proposes Black Box Diaries. A diary which traces her accusations of rape against a manager of a television channel, and her fight against misogyny to improve the handling of sexual violence by the justice system. “I don’t know what to expect, but this is America, so I hope I can meet people who will share their experiences too,” she confided before the broadcast of her documentary, scheduled for Saturday January 20.