Seventh Row

A place to think deeply about movies

Sundance 2023 Podcast Season Episodes

Below, you'll find all the episodes in our Sundance 2023 podcast season.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we'll be covering this year's festival, and how the programming fits into the festival's history on the podcast.

Join us for a podcast season starting January 18 on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and become a member to listen to all of our episodes on Sundance from this year and before.

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Sundance 2023 Ep.7: Best of the fest + documentaries Fantastic Machine, Is There Anybody Out There, and more

In the seventh and final episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss the documentaries at Sundance 2023, focusing on the films Fantastic Machine, Is There Anybody Out There?, The Stroll, and Plan C. We also discuss the best films of Sundance and wrap up our discussion of the festival

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast now.

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Stills from the films discussed on episode 7 of the Sundance 2023 podcast. Clockwise from top left, stills from the film Plan C, And The King Said What A Fantastic Machine, The Stroll, and Is There Anybody Out There? Stills courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Stills from the films discussed on episode 7 of the Sundance 2023 podcast, in which we discuss documentaries at this year’s festival and the festival highlights. Clockwise from top left, stills from the film Plan C, And The King Said What A Fantastic Machine, The Stroll, and Is There Anybody Out There? Stills courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the seventh and final episode of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we’ll be covering this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

Subscribe To the podcast now

About this episode: Documentaries at Sundance 2023 + Festival wrap

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:26 Why we’re talking about documentaries at Sundance
  • 03:05 And the King Said What a Fantastic Machine directed by Axel Danielsen & Maximilien Van Aertryck
  • 11:19 Is There Anybody Out There? directed by Ella Glendining (and other first-person disability docs programmed by Sundance, including I Didn’t See You There, Unrest, and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie)
  • 31:13 The Stroll directed by Kristen Parker Lovell & Zackary Drucker
  • 36:04 Plan C directed by Tracy Droz Tragos
  • 39:35 Milisuthando directed by Milisuthando Bongela
  • 42:28 Against the Tide directed by Sarvnik Kaur
  • 56:27 Final thoughts on Sundance 2023 and top tens
  • 01:10:57 Sundance bingo

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The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.

Our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. In addition, many of our new episodes are for members only. 

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes, become a member.

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How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on documentaries at Sundance 2023 and the best of the festival

Related episodes to 2023 Sundance documentaries and creative nonfiction

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

Episodes on creative nonfiction (and documentary) film

At Seventh Row, we are dedicated to having in-depth conversations about documentaries pushing the boundaries of the form. That is part of our first book on documentary filmmaking, In their own words: Documentary Masters, and the sole focus of our follow-up ebook Subjective realities: The art of nonfiction film.

Our interest in creative nonfiction extends to our in-depth podcast discussions. When we talk about documentary, we don’t just talk about the information they’re providing but how the films use film form and grammar in innovative ways to communicate ideas and story.

  • Sundance’s history of programming creative nonfiction films: Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative nonfiction (MEMBERS ONLY). In this episode, we build on our discussion from Ep. 123 in which we talked about the festival’s history of programming documentary films, especially what we’re calling ‘creative nonfiction’, and the films that fit into this category at the 2022 festival.
  • An introduction to creative nonfiction films: Ep. 99: Creative nonfiction with Carol Nguyen and Penny Lane (FREE FOREVER). In this masterclass featuring a conversation between documentarians Carol Nguyen and Penny Lane, they discuss what the term and genre “creative nonfiction” means to them. Penny Lane coined the term as it relates to documentary film. This episode helped form the foundation for how we think about creative nonfiction film, and its transcript forms the first chapter our ebook Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film.

Discover more great creative nonfiction films like Fantastic Machine and Is There Anybody Out There? in these episodes

  • Fiction vs. nonfiction when telling the story of Christine Chubbuck: Ep. 106: Christine and Kate Plays Christine: Reviving Christine Chubbuck (MEMBERS ONLY): In this episode, we discuss two films about Christine Chubbuck: one non-fiction and one fiction. Both films premiered at Sundance (even screened back to back!), and we discuss the opportunities and limitations of fiction vs. nonfiction in telling this story. To listen to the episode, become a member.
  • Two completely different fly-on-the-wall documentary approaches to political stories about male-dominated spaces: Ep. 53: Boys State and First Stripes (MEMBERS ONLY). In this episode, we compare two wo political, but not didactic, documentaries, Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s Sundance 2020 hit Boys State and Jean-François Caissy’s 2018 film First Stripes.
  • Two docs that reclaim the history of transgender people and Black Albertans, respectively: Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming histories in documentaries. Zackary Drucker, who co-directed the film The Stroll, appears as a commentator in the film No Ordinary Man, which uses the story of Billy Tipton, one of the first transgender public figures in the US, to think more broadly about trans history and what it means to us today. In this episode, we discuss No Ordinary Man and compare its approaches to reclaiming the history of the transgender community with John Ware Reclaimed, which reclaims the history of a legendary Black man in Alberta.

Other episodes that discuss abortion films like Plan C

  • Ep. 36: Never Rarely Sometimes Always and abortion on screen: In our first discussion of abortion stories on screen, we discuss the Sundance hit Never Rarely Sometimes Always and how it compares to other recent depictions of abortion on screen. We also discuss Saint Frances and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
  • Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies: Although this episode is less focused on the history abortion depictions or the activism of films like Plan C, telling romantic comedies in the context of a woman who wants an abortion for her unwanted pregnancy is its own form of activism. We discuss how these depictions have shifted from 2014 to 2021 with these two films, and what that can tell us about what abortion stories people are ready to see on screen.

Past Sundance Film Festival episodes (2021-2022)

  • Bonus Episode 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction Films (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2022, we reflect on the highs, lows, discoveries, and disappointments among the fiction films at the festival, from Sharp Stick to Living. We also talk about how the festival programmed several movies about abortion, including the activism documentary film The Janes, which shares some similarities with this year’s film Plan C.
  • Ep. 78: Sundance 2021 part 1 (Members only): At the end of Sundance 2021, we reflect on the highs and lows of the festival with guests Andrew Kendall and Lena Wilson.
  • Ep. 79: Sundance 2021 part 2 (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2021, we continue our discussion of the best and worst of the festival.

Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

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Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]

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Sundance 2023 Ep.6: Passages,You Hurt My Feelings, Rotting in the Sun, and more.

In the sixth episode (and third dispatch) of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss highlights like Ira Sachs’s film Passages, Nicole Holofcener’s film You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun, and Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer, as well as other buzzed-about films at the festival.

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast now.

Subscribe To the podcast now Listen to the episode
Film stills from Agnus MacLachlan's film A Little Prayer, Ira Sachs's film Passages, Nicole Holofcener's film You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva's film Rotting in the Sun.
Film stills, clockwise from top left: Still from Agnus MacLachlan’s film A Little Prayer, Ira Sachs’s film Passages, Nicole Holofcener’s film You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva’s film Rotting in the Sun. Stills courtesy of the Sundance Institute.
Films on the podcast include Rotting in the Sun

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the sixth of seven episodes of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 ran from January 19-28, and we have covered this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

Subscribe To the podcast now

About this episode: Sundance 2023 highlights like the films You Hurt My Feelings, Rotting in the Sun, Passages, A Little Prayer, and more buzzed-about films

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:10 Brief thoughts on Fremont, Infinity Pool, Bad Behaviour, Rye Lane, Drift, A Thousand and One
  • 39:20 You Hurt My Feelings by Nicole Holofcener
  • 52:04 Rotting in the Sun by Sebastián Silva
  • 1:04:22 Passages by Ira Sachs
  • 1:21:55 A Little Prayer by Angus MacLachlan
  • 1:33:30 Fair Play, Cat Person, and the legacy of Promising Young Woman
  • 1:54:49 Sundance bingo

In this episode, we discuss four of our favourite films of Sundance 2023, each in the Premieres section: Nicole Holofcener’s dreamed, You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva’s black comedy Rotting in the Sun, Ira Sachs’ relationship drama Passages, and Angus MacLachlan’s quietly insightful family drama. We also talk briefly about the disappointing films that have forged themselves in the image of Promising Young Woman: Fair Play and Cat Person. Orla discusses one of her most hated films of the festival, Infinity Pool, and Alex defends Alice Englert’s troubled feature debut Bad Behaviour. Alex also adds her thoughts on Fremont, which Orla first discussed in episode 3 (Alex agrees it’s excellent).

Finally, we both discuss some minor highlights of the festival. We were underwhelmed by British rom-com Rye Lane, though think it’s a good depiction of the city. Alex liked Anthony Chen’s (Ilo Ilo and Wet Season) English-language debut Drift, starring Cynthia Erivo and Alia Shawkat, despite its problematic script, because the direction and performances were so good (Honor Swinton-Byrne also shows up!). Orla also weighs in on the US Grand Jury Prize Winner One Thousand Nights.

When/where will you be able to watch the films?

Infinity Pool is currently in cinemas in Canada and the US. Mubi has picked up worldwide rights to Passages, which it will likely release later this year. Sony Pictures Classics (and Mongrel Media in Canada) has picked up the US rights for the film A Little Prayer. We expect a fall release with some fall festival play, and perhaps an Oscar campaign for David Strathairn. A24 already had the rights to Nicole Holofcener’s film You Hurt My Feelings, which we expect will likely be a summer release in the US and Canada. Netflix paid 20 million dollars for Fair Play, which given the positive response at the festival (even if we thought it was bad) will likely mean a fall release. Focus Features has the rights to A Thousand and One which we now expect to be Oscar campaigned with a fall release.

Never miss an episode again. Become a member.

The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.

Our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. In addition, many of our new episodes are for members only. 

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes, become a member.

Become a Member Now

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on the E6 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season: Passages, You Hurt My Feelings, Rotting in the Sun, A Little Prayer, and more

Related episodes to films discussed in E6, including Passages, You Hurt My Feelings, Rotting in the Sun, A Little Prayer, and more

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

Episodes related to the Franz Rogowski in the film Passages

  • Ep. 5: Christian Petzold’s Transit (MEMBERS ONLY): Franz Rogowski, who stars in the film Passages, is one of the best actors working today. Head back to one of our earliest episodes where we discuss his amazing (best of the decade) performance in one of the best films of the decade.
  • Ep. 119: Mike Leigh’s Naked (FREE — soon becoming MEMBERS ONLY): There are very few good cinematic depictions of narcissists. Ira Sachs’s Passages is the latest entry into the canon, and the narcissist at its centre, played by Franz Rogowski, reminded us of Johnny (David Thewlis) from Mike Leigh’s Naked, if much less sympathetic (and yet less abusive).

Episodes about Ben Whishaw, co-star of Passages

  • Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (MEMBERS ONLY): Ben Whishaw was at Sundance this year with two new movies: Alice Englert’s film Bad Behaviour (as a cult leader) and Ira Sachs’s film Passages (as a man married to Franz Rogowski who cheats on him with a woman). We celebrated Whishaw’s work in both Paddington films, and his prowess as an actor more generally, in this discussion that concludes Paddington is the ultimate symbol of British colonialism.
  • Bonus ep. 25: This is Going to Hurt (MEMBERS ONLY): Ben Whishaw is one of the very best working actors today. With two films at Sundance coming out later this year (hopefully!), now is a great time to visit his tour de force career best work as the lead of This is Going To Hurt, a show about physician mental health in the NHS. His performance is both comic and dramatic and absolutely heartbreaking. It’s also so incredibly detailed. Nobody else could do it like him.

Related episodes to the films A Little Prayer, Rotting in the Sun, and You Hurt My Feelings.

  • Ep. 40: Remembering dead mothers in Stories We Tell, Louder Than Bombs, and Mouthpiece (MEMBERS ONLY): A Little Prayer is a film very much about the family as an ecosystem and a unit of people trying their best under difficult circumstances and often screwing. That’s also what Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs (2015) is about, and we discuss it in depth in this episode. Louder Than Bombs is also about what happens to a family when a major secret has been kept and comes out, wreaking some havoc, just as in the film You Hurt My Feelings.
  • Ep. 94: HBO’s Looking (MEMBERS ONLY): It’s not often that we get media that is unabashedly gay, depicting gay spaces and the gay community in a way that might make heterosexuals uncomfortable. HBO’s Looking was pioneer for this on TV, including the way it depicted gay sex and intimacy. Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun also pushes the envelope, though in a much more confronting (and depressing) way.

Related episodes to Cat Person and Fair Play

  • Ep. 73: Explorations of rape culture in Promising Young Woman and The Assistant (MEMBERS ONLY): Fair Play and Cat Person at Sundance this year feel like poor attempts to ride the Promising Young Woman hype. Revisit our original bashing of Promising Young Woman for context about why we think its approach to addressing sexual assault is really problematic. We compare it to The Assistant which was way better and also screened at Sundance that year, a much subtler and smarter approach to the topic.
  • Bonus ep. 16: Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls in 2021 (MEMBERS ONLY): Lena Dunham was a pioneer of uncomfortable sex scenes involving women in the their 20s, and films like Promising Young Woman, Cat Person, and Fair Play have picked up the baton (if not reached Dunham’s heights). In this episode, we discussed what it was like to watch Girls in 2021 (for the first time for Orla).

Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

Become a Member Now

Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]

Listen to the Sundance 2023 season

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Sundance 2023 Ep. 5: Sometimes I Think About Dying, Fremont, Eileen, Fairyland, and more films

In the fifth episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss some of this year’s buzziest titles, including William Oldroyd’s film Eileen, Andrew Durham’s film Fairyland, and some hidden gems like Babak Jalali’s film Fremont and Rachel Lambert’s film Sometimes I Think About Dying.

Listen to the episode

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Clockwise from top left: Stills from the films Fairyland, Sometimes I Think about Dying, Fremont, and Eileen. Sundance 2023 Episode 5 header image.
Sundance 2023 Episode 5 header image. Clockwise from top left: Stills from the films Fairyland, Sometimes I Think about Dying, Fremont, and Eileen.

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the third of many episodes of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we’ll be covering this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

Subscribe To the podcast now

About the episode: Eileen, Fairyland, Fremont, Sometimes I Think About Dying, and more films

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:49 Brief thoughts on Mutt, Cassandro, Polite Society, Theater Camp
  • 17:58 Sometimes I Think About Dying directed by Rachel Lambert
  • 28:45 Fremont by Babak Jalali
  • 36:16 Eileen by William Oldroyd
  • 51:43 Fairyland by Andrew Durham
  • 1:08:59 Sundance bingo

In this episode, we discuss some of the buzziest films of the first half of the festival and some of our favourites — though there isn’t much overlap. We give brief thoughts on the films Mutt, Cassandro (starring Gael García Bernal), Polite Society, and Theater Camp. Next, we go deep on festival favourites like the sophomore feature films from Rachel Lambert (Sometimes I Think About Dying) and William Oldroyd (Eileen), as well as Babak Jalali’s low-budget film Fremont. We also discuss why the film Fairyland. about queer culture in San Francisco in the 70s/80s and the AIDS crisis, was disappointing

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on the E5 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season:

Related episodes to E5

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

  • Ep. 1: Leave No Trace (FREE): We first fell in love with Thomasin McKenzie for her work in the Sundance film Leave No Trace, which we wrote a book about. In this companion episode to the book, we discuss why the film was so great and what a talent McKenzie is. McKenzie returned to Sundance this year as the star of William Oldroyd’s film Eileen.
  • Ep. 22: The King (FREE): In this crossover episode with our Shakespeare Podcast, 21st Folio, we watch the terrible film The King for you, and report back on what a mess it is and how under-used Thomasin McKenzie is.
  • Ep. 91: AIDS on screen, featuring It’s a Sin (MEMBERS ONLY): In this episode, we give an overview of films/TV/recorded theatre dating back to the 1990s that have addressed the AIDS crisis. It’s a must listen before seeing Fairyland and offers many recommendations for films that address the AIDS crisis well (which Fairyland does not).
  • Ep. 98: Angels in America adaptations (MEMBERS ONLY): Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is one of the most famous AIDS plays, and we delve deep into the HBO miniseries and the National Theatre’s 2016 recorded production. We also talk about how the two productions address the AIDS crisis and how the views of the play have shifted in the last 20 years.

Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

Become a Member Now

Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]

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Sundance 2023 Ep.4: Indigenous Films, from Bad Press to Twice Colonized

In the fourth episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss the North American films by and about Indigenous Peoples at the festival, including Twice Colonized, Bad Press, Murder in Big Horn, and Fancy Dance.

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast now.

Subscribe To the podcast now Listen to the episode
Sundance 2023 Episode #4: Indigenous Films. Clockwise from top right: Still from Twice Colonized, the US documentary film Free Press, and the US miniseries Murder In Big Horn.
Sundance 2023 Episode #4: Indigenous Films. Clockwise from top right: Still from Twice Colonized, the US documentary film Free Press, and the US miniseries Murder In Big Horn.

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the fourth of many episodes of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we’ll be covering this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

Subscribe To the podcast now

About this episode: Indigenous Films at Sundance

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:05 Why are we discussing Indigenous films at Sundance?
  • 14:11 Fancy Dance is our favourite Indigenous film at Sundance
  • 14:54 Murder in Big Horn
  • 31:00 Twice Colonized
  • 41:13 Bad Press
  • 49:26 The trend of an Indigenous filmmaker and a settler filmmaker co-directing
  • 57:58 Indigenous films at Sundance set outside of North America: Heroic, Sorcery, Against the Tide

In this episode, we discuss Indigenous Films at Sundance: films directed or co-directed by Indigenous people as well as a couple of films about Indigenous people but directed by settlers. We kick off with our favourite Indigenous film at the festival, Fancy Dance, about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) which we already went deep on in episode 3.

We then dig into the disappointing documentary miniseries Murder in Big Horn (dir. Razelle Benally who is Oglala Lakota/Diné and Matthew Galkin), which looks at MMIWG in the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Nations. The Sundance miniseries Murder in Big Horn is told through the lens of an Indigenous investigative journalist looking into the case and uses the tropes of true crime. We talk about the often thoughtful but inchoate Twice Colonized, which was directed by a settler The film Twice Colonized follows the wonderful Inuk lawyer Aaju Peter (who also appears in Angry Inuk).

Quick Thoughts on Sundance Indigenous Films Bad Press and Heroic

Next, we talk briefly about another disappointing Sundance US Indigenous film, a documentary co-directed by an Indigenous director, Bad Press (dir. Muscogee filmmaker Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler), about the Mvskoke Media in the Muscogee Creek Nation navigating gaining and then losing and then trying to regain their status as free press. We also touch briefly on Fox Maxy’s New Frontiers experimental film Gush.

Finally, we briefly discuss Heroic, a World Dramatic Competition film about an Indigenous character and mention the other World Cinema films that are about (but not made by) Indigenous people.

Never miss an episode again. Become a member.

The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.

Our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. In addition, many of our new episodes are for members only. 

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes, become a member.

Become a Member Now

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on the E4 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season: Indigenous Film

Related episodes to E4: Sundance 2023 Indigenous Films

At Seventh Row, we have a long-standing interest in covering Indigenous Films from around the world, with a special focus on films produced in Canada. In this episode, we reference any great Indigenous films and creatives that we’ve discussed on previous episodes. If you’d like to learn more about Indigenous filmmaking, we recommend checking these out.

Podcasts on Indigenous filmmaking in Australia

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

Become a Member Now

Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]

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Sundance 2023 Ep.3: Slow, Fancy Dance, Scrapper, A Still Small Voice, and other early highlights

In the third episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss highlights of the festival so far, including the films Slow, Fancy Dance, Scrapper, A Still Small Voice, and half of the World Dramatic Competition.

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast now.

Subscribe To the podcast now Listen to the episode
Sundance films When It Melts, Fancy Dance, Scrapper, and Slow: Clockwise from top left. Top right: a young Indigenous girls spreads her arms as if to dance, walking alongside her aunt (Lily Gladstone) in the Sundance film Fancy Dance. Bottom left: Harris Dickinson (left) stars as a young dad opposite his 12-year-old daughter (right) in the Sundance film Scrapper. The pair have their arms outstretched their fingers pointing at each other. Bottom right: in a tight clasp, a man and woman almost kiss in the Sundance World Dramatic Competition film Slow.
Clockwise from top left: stills from the Sundance films When It Melts, Fancy Dance, Scrapper, and Slow.

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the third of many episodes of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we’ll be covering this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

Subscribe To the podcast now

About this episode: Slow, Fancy Dance, Scrapper and more Sundance film highlights

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 09:10 Films from the Sundance World Dramatic Competition so far: Slow, Heroic, Scrapper, When It Melts, Mamacruz, Girl
  • 53:23 Fancy Dance starring Lily Gladstone
  • 1:18:35 A Still Small Voice
  • 1:24:22 Sundance bingo

The World Dramatic Competition So Far

In our first dispatch on the world premieres at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, we delve into the under-discussed and oft-ignored World Dramatic Competition. We go deep on our favourite World Dramatic Competition title so far: Slow (dir. Marija Kavtaradze), Scrapper (dir. Charlotte Regan), and When It Melts (dir. Veerle Baetens).

Slow is a Lithuanian film about a dancer navigating a new relationship with her asexual partner. The film Scrapper is about a working class twelve-year-old girl in Dagenham who recently lost her mother and reconnects with her estranged father (an excellent Harris Dickinson). When It Melts is about a traumatic childhood event in a twelve-year-old girl’s life that has devastating consequences for her as an adult. We also discuss Heroic (dir. David Zonana, Workforce) and Mamacruz (dir. Patricia Ortega), which also screened in the World Dramatic Competition.

In past years, we’ve found some of our favourite films at Sundance in this section, including The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet (2021), Charter (2020), The Souvenir (2020), God’s Own Country (2017), Mammal (2016), Sand Storm (2016), and Homesick (2015). Unfortunately, these films also have the tendency to disappear so we wanted to throw a spotlight on the competition this year (as we do every year!), to draw attention to films you’ll want to watch out for at local film festivals, which may be your only opportunity to watch them, or could get buried on VOD in the future. And hopefully, we can help get these films noticed and distributed!

Early US highlights

Finally, we turn to two early US highlights. First, Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance in the US Dramatic Competition about an Indigenous woman (Lily Gladstone) searching for her sister who recently went missing (MMIWG) while suddenly finding herself the sole guardian for her 12-year-old niece. Second, Orla highlights the documentary A Still Small Voice (dir. Luke Lorentzen), about the toll on a hospital chaplain of constantly extending empathy to others.

Sundance Bingo

Finally, in our cheeky ongoing segment, we take stock of how we’re doing on our Sundance Bingo card. The festival’s programming can be a bit predictable: they have certain slots to fill and they make sure they fill them. Sundance Bingo is a fun way to see just if the programming is as predictable as we expected and how. Download the Sundance 2023 bingo card to follow along at home.

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The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.

Our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. In addition, many of our new episodes are for members only. 

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How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on E3 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season: Fancy Dance, Slow, Scrapper, A Still Small Voice and more

Links to articles/books related to the 2023 selections

Related episodes to Sundance 2023 E3: Slow, Fancy Dance, Scrapper, A Still Small Voice, and more

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

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  • Ep. 116: Virtual film festivals: Taking stock of their past, present, and future (Members Only): Sundance is one of the only festivals in 2023 to continue to offer a virtual component. On this episode from 2021, we talked about the advent of virtual film festivals, why we like them, why they may struggle, and what we’d like to see in the future.
  • Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative nonfiction (FREE): In this episode, we talk about Sundance’s history of programming creative nonfiction films and how this has changed in the last decade. We’ll be on the lookout for exciting new creative nonfiction films at the festival this year. Our early favourite is A Still Small Voice.
  • Bonus Episode 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction Films (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2022, we reflect on the highs, lows, discoveries, and disappointments among the fiction films at the festival, including Girl Picture, the best film in the 2022 World Dramatic Competition.
  • Ep. 63: Indigenous YA, part 2 (Members Only): In this episode, we discuss a fantastic films about MMIWG that precedes Fancy Dance, Rustic Oracle, a film made in Canada. Rustic Oracle would make for a great double feature with Fancy Dance.
  • Ep. 53: First Stripes and Boys State (Members Only): We go deep on the fantastic documentary First Stripes, which follows new recruits through basic training in the Canadian military.

Catch up with the rest of the Sundance 2023 podcast season

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Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]

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Sundance 2023 Ep.2: The Spotlight Program and Eight Mountains

In the second episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss Sundance’s Spotlight Program, its only feature film program dedicated to films that premiered at other festivals. We discuss the program’s history of picking great films and giving them the spotlight they needed (but didn’t get at other festivals). We also discuss this year’s selections, including The Eight Mountains, L’Immensità, and Joyland.

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Stills from films screening in the Spotlight Section. Clockwise from top left: Joyland, Other People's Children, L'Immensità, and The Eight Mountains
Stills from films screening in the Spotlight Section. Clockwise from top left: Joyland, Other People’s Children, L’Immensità, and The Eight Mountains

Listen to the whole Sundance 2023 season

Today is the second of many episodes of the 2023 Sundance season of the Seventh Row podcast.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we’ll be covering this year’s festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival’s history.

Listen to all the episodes to discover the year’s best and worst films, and how this year’s program jives with past festivals.

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About this episode: The 2023 Sundance Spotlight Program

In this episode, we discuss the history of Sundance’s Spotlight Program, the only Program consisting entirely of films that premiered at other festivals. We also talk about the role of the Program within Sundance and some of the great films the festival has programmed here. We’ve actually written books featuring several of the films that screened in Spotlight, including You Were Never Really Here, Girlhood, and The Worst Person in the World. And several of the films previously programmed in the last decade have made our list of the best films of the 2010s.

We discuss four of the five films programmed in the Spotlight section: Other People’s Children, Joyland, L’Immensità, and The Eight Mountains. Since we already talked about Other People’s Children in depth on a previous episode, we only discuss it briefly here. Additionally, we go deep on The Eight Mountains, which Alex loved, and briefly discuss the other two films in the program that we’ve seen which we weren’t too keen on.

  • 00:00 What is the Spotlight section?
  • 13:26 This year’s Spotlight section
  • 26:26 Deeper discussion on The Eight Mountains

Never miss an episode again. Become a member.

The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.

Our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. In addition, many of our new episodes are for members only. 

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes, become a member.

Become a Member Now

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow.

You can find Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram @bwestcineaste; and Orla Smith on Twitter and Instagram.

Show Notes on the E2 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season: Spotlight Program

Links to articles/books on films that previously screened in Spotlight

Related episodes to E2: Sundance 2023 Spotlight program

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

To listen to all of these related episodes, become a member.

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Episodes on Films featured in the Spotlight section

Episodes on genre films featured in the Sundance Spotlight program

  • Ep. 17: The Nightingale (Members Only): Having launched her career in the World Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Jennifer Kent once again returned to the festival with her second feature, The Nightingale, which premiered at Venice to an underwhelming response. We thought the film was rich and excellent in many ways (if flawed), and went deep on it on the podcast.
  • Ep. 112: Raw and Thelma and modern female monsters (Members Only): After receiving rave reviews (and press about vomiting walkouts) at Cannes and TIFF, Julia Ducournau (who later won the Palme d’Or for Titane) screened her first feature, Raw at Sundance in the Spotlight program. We talk about the film in comparison with Joachim Trier’s Thelma.
  • Ep. 38 Australian Westerns: The True History of the Kelly Gang, Sweet Country, and The Dressmaker (Members Only): Warwick Thornton’s fantastic feature Sweet Country previously screened in the Sundance Spotlight program after premiering (and winning an award) at Venice and TIFF. In this episode, we discuss how Thornton decolonizes the Australian Western, as well as how this compares to Australian Westerns about settler characters (made by settlers).

Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.

For exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes:

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Speakers on this episode

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Episode transcript

The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.

[fusebox_transcript]