‘Penelope’ Review: A Beautifully Straightforward Adventure Pilot Sets Up Something Potentially Outstanding [Sundance]

As the latest feature from writers/directors Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero (“Identifying Features”) draws to a close, it’s hard to ignore the starkness, pacing, and tone overall; this is hardly the sort of film one puts on as any sort of a palate cleanser. While superbly well-made, beautifully shot, and comprised of a cast firing on all cylinders in terms of acting ability, to make it through “Sujo” is akin to a slight exercise in endurance, though not without a noticeable crescendo as the film chugs along.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” joins “Free Solo” in a film subgenre that can only be described as “F*ck That.” It’s an ultra-specific genre of documentary that showcases feats that are so incredibly dangerous that you not only shake your head in disbelief but actually get your heart beating harder as you hold your breath, imagining that if you don’t make a noise, then maybe these people won’t die right before your eyes.

By now, it should be evident that each passing year brings with it advancements in technology, landing anywhere on an imaginary graph containing the likes of the latest smartphone to a car that can brew a mean cup of coffee. One area that’s been hovering over the whole of humanity for far longer than a need for a house that dictates a grocery list is that of the afterlife; pondering what happens after each and every one of us shuffle off this mortal coil remains, quite possibly, an everlastingly unanswerable question, but for those left behind in the wake of a loved one’s passing, a more pressing matter would be the manner in which one deals with said loss, and how best to move on.

Despite the increased awareness of gender identities, there is one classification that has been around for over 100 years or 30 years (it’s debatable) that rarely enjoys the spotlight, intersex. An intersex person can be a broad definition for someone who is born without a number of different sexual characteristics.

There’s something magical that happens to most people around the age of 13. For many, that’s when you might have your first real romantic love.

Media representation of disabled people is challenging to get right — too saccharine, and you’re veering towards inspiration porn, too maudlin, and you’re implying that a disabled life might not be a life worth living. “Ibelin,” the newest documentary from “The Painter and the Thief” filmmaker Benjamin Ree, strikes a poignant balance, acknowledging the ways that physical disability can limit a life while showing how one complex man expanded his world nonetheless.

“Reinas,” the latest from director Klaudia Reynicke, is a quiet but vivid tale of summer days in Lima, Peru. The script, which Reynicke co-wrote with Diego Vega, depicts a family drama against a backdrop of political chaos.

A formally rigorous and free-associative dive into a decade’s worth of political fighting in the Congo, from roughly 1955 to 1965, Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is a fascinating and sprawling historical overview. Eschewing the usual mix of contextual talking heads, the Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist instead adopts its narrative approach from the jazz that flows freely throughout the film and helps frame the political struggles of the Congo.

It starts innocuously enough. “Krazy House,” the English-language debut of Dutch filmmakers Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil, launches with a ‘90s family sitcom parody that ribs their cheese and cringe.

China began loosening its one-child policy in 2015 until finally, in 2021, it abolished all restrictions on the number of children a family could have. Young Chinese filmmakers are beginning to grapple with the fallout of those prior decades in new fiction films that demonstrate how the Chinese family unit has been irreversibly transformed.

As one examines the abundance of cultures worldwide, to see the marginal way women continue to be treated on a global scale remains infuriating to take in during the era of #MeToo and the fact that seemingly little progress has been made even as our society makes its way into 2024. Though gains can undeniably be acknowledged on the political front and numerous other fields, it’s still apparent that an ocean exists in the way of real change, with “Black Box Diaries” a stunning example of the heavily outdated customs in which parts of our minuscule planet find themselves stuck and the women who suffer as a direct result.

The premise of the documentary “Will & Harper” is so simple that it almost seems presentational, self-serving, or stunt-y. The idea is, after 30 years of friendship, comedian Will Ferrell learns, through a personal email, that an old friend and former “Saturday Night Live” writer, then Adam Steele (yes, the dead name is used at first), is coming out as a trans woman.

As the “peak TV” wave begins to crest, artists are again realizing that not every book needs adaptation as a miniseries. There’s value in the concision and prioritization forced by the feature format.

Jesse Moss’ chilling and engrossing documentary “War Game” begins ominously, moves with urgency, and never lets up. The film begins with two suspicious men surveilling the capitol building in Washington D.C.

The first of many misdirects of perspective occurs in the opening shot of “In a Violent Nature.” The film opens with off-screen voices in discussion as the camera fixes its glance on what appears like a slipshod frame of a tree branch in the forest. It’s an image that feels haphazardly put together, and combined with the disembodied dialogue, filmmaker Chris Nash primes the audience to perceive the scene as something akin to a DIY YouTube video.

Every so often, a film comes along that, as if out of nowhere, leaves an unexpected impression and a need to find a moment to take in all that was witnessed fully; it’s a phenomenon that can come from any genre, any type of project, any filmmaker or subject, from battles in a galaxy far, far away to the intricate life story of a media tycoon. Sometimes, the smallest forms of art end up being the most effective, with “Sugarcane” a perfect example of how to draw in an audience to the film’s powerful message with moments as shocking as any entry into the world of horror.

It’s safe to assume that, were one to simply look at the film’s runtime or consider the basic concept surrounding the documentary “Daughters,“ there’s presumably much more to this than a simple film about a Father-Daughter dance organized for one particular group of incarcerated men and their children, separated by prison walls and an ocean of distance both physically as much as emotionally. Such dance events are commonplace; normally held annually as a way for fathers to bond with their young girls within a setting not unlike a homecoming dance or prom, most could be seen as little more than an excuse for a large group of children to burn off energy as they dash around a gymnasium to any number of DJ-provided pop hits, but there are equal parts undeniable connections made throughout the course of the evening as well as a memory both will, in all likelihood, forever cherish.

An exploration of the generational trauma surrounding the “stolen generations” of Aboriginal children by the Australian government, Jon Bell’s feature debut “The Moogai” fits all the criteria of what we would, perhaps pejoratively, describe as “elevated horror.” A fraught term, and one that would need more than the length of this review to dive into, it nevertheless seems apt for a film that so blatantly makes its subtext into text.

At first glance, “Love Lies Bleeding” might look like another Americana-steeped tale of lovers on the run. But a look beyond its sleek hardbodies reveals that director Rose Glass has once again made a monster movie, albeit one of a different character than the spiritual possession in her scorching debut “Saint Maud.” Here, Glass finds a Gothic-tinged tale of passion and pride burning brightly amidst the embers of the eighties.

Kobi Libii’s work on the sadly short-lived Comedy Central show “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper” always tended toward the confrontational. By donning the guise of right-wing media provocateurs, he highlighted the absurd internal contradictions of ideological hardliners.