Sundance Film Festival Preview: The Wedding Banquet, Obex, Bunnylovr and more
Next week, two Hyperreal Film Journal writers will pack their parkas and snow boots and jet off to Park City, Utah, for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Our editor-in-chief Alix Mammina and staff writer Andy Volk share their top picks to catch, whether you’re braving the cold in-person or checking in for online screenings.
Alix Mammina, Editor-in-Chief
The Wedding Banquet
This star-studded update on Ang Lee’s queer rom-com-drama of the same name will put a modern twist on the lavender-green card marriage of the original. With Andrew Ahn (director of my personal favorite comfort movie, Fire Island) behind the wheel and Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran and Bowen Young as the faces of the remake, what’s not to love?
Peter Hujar’s Day
I loved Ben Wishaw in Ira Sachs’ Passages, a movie that half my friends hated but which I loved for its Le Bonheur vibes, and I can’t wait to see his strange physicality on the big screen again—along with Rebecca Hall, the actress who has maybe most fascinated me in the past decade.
Bunnylovr
Yes, the name drew me in. This debut feature from writer-director Katarina Zhu also stars her as a cam girl navigating relationships with the men in her life; I’m a sucker for a slow, woman-focused indie drama and this looks right up my alley.
Life, After & Predators
These documentaries cover two longtime rabbit-hole interests of mine—societal responses to the right-to-die movement (Life, After) and child predators (Predators). Both documentaries promise to take a look at thorny ethical dilemmas with layered perspectives.
Andy Volk, Staff Writer
Obex
Albert Birney has made a name for himself for his endearing, off-kilter lo-fi sci-fi. After 2021’s Strawberry Mansion fantastical dreamscape showcased Birney’s charming DIY sensibilities, Obex will no doubt be a humorous and strange blend of 80s/90s internet technology, musings on human connection, and prove, yet again, that making movies with your friends is infectious.
Touch Me
As a friend, I’m excited for Addison Heimann’s Sundance debut, Touch Me. As a film fan, programmer, genre-freak—I’m excited to see how he conjures up a surreal, madcap experience involving drugs, friends, and aliens with influences of Japanese cinema and anime.
The Dating Game
No festival experience is complete without a documentary that illuminates the strange edges of human behavior with heart and humor. The Dating Game seems to be exactly that, and couldn’t come any sooner as we continue to become isolated behind screens and unsure how to approach the real world.