Sundance Film Festival screens 2 Dutch co-productions

Thu, Jan 19 - Sun, Jan 29  2023

Sundance Film Festival 2023 in Park City, Utah, screens two Dutch co-producitons: 5 Seasons of Revolution and When it Melts. Filmmaker Lina uses a haunting, impressionistic style that mixes diaries, memories, and reflections to share a personal story of living inside a revolution, and the struggle for freedom and autonomy. Veerle Bartens’ When it Melts sketches an unflinching portrait of the lasting impact of untreated trauma.

5 Seasons of Revolution, directed by Lina

When the promise of an Arab Spring swept the region and word of protests calling for the Syrian regime to be overthrown reached Damascus, young, independent video reporter Lina and her group of hopeful, cosmopolitan compatriots celebrated the arrival of revolution. In order to avoid detection from the state and its directed and implied violence, Lina learned to embrace multiple identities to survive and continue reporting. As the months turned to years, the heady early days slowly became an ever-present brutal grind, chewing up relationships, futures, and lives.

In her debut feature, filmmaker Lina uses a haunting, impressionistic style that mixes diaries, memories, and reflections to share a personal story of living inside a revolution, and the struggle for freedom and autonomy against enemies known and unknown. 5 Seasons of Revolution is a rare chronicle that not only takes you inside the conflicts that exist among a group of comrades whose solidarity is tested, but also the conflicts within, as a storyteller tries to understand what they experienced while negotiating their always-shifting perspective as a witness, participant, and narrator. Revolution is Lina’s debut feature-length, which has been in the making, undercover, for 10 years.

Schedule

Jan. 21, 4:30 PM EST – Egyptian Theatre
Jan. 22, 3:30 PM EST – Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway 6
Jan. 23, 5:00 PM EST, Redstone Cinemas – 7
Jan. 25 11:00 AM EST, Park Avenue Theatre
Jan. 27, 2:00 PM EST – Prospector Square Theatre

Get tickets here.

A still from 5 Seasons of Revolution by Lina, an official selection of the World Cinema: Documentary Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

When It Melts, directed by Veerle Baetens

Eva struggles with human connection. Now that her younger sister Tess is moving out, and long estranged from her neglectful parents, the fragile Eva is finally truly alone. Already reeling, she’s instinctively revulsed by a social media post announcing the memorial celebration for a long-passed childhood friend. She emotionally recalls her sensitive 13-year-old self in the wake of his death, embracing her role as the third musketeer to a pair of slightly older boys, and how the adolescent riddle game the trio played against the local girls took a deeply unsound turn. Eva decides to return to her home village and confront the scorching summer that altered her life.

Director Veerle Baetens’ provocative feature debut is an explosively close-to-the-bone illustration of the toxic confusion and cruelty of adolescence and an unflinching portrait of the lasting impact of untreated trauma. Rosa Marchant and Charlotte De Bruyne give heartbreakingly juxtaposed, committed performances, as the film compels us to witness how the affection-starved, vulnerable young Eva was molded into her brittle, isolated adult self — past and present colliding in one inevitably tragic trajectory.

Schedule

Jan. 21, 8:00 PM EST – Park Avenue Theatre
Jan. 22, 5:00 PM EST – Redstone Cinemas – 7
Jan. 24, 10:35 PM EST – Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway 6
Jan. 25, 7:30 PM EST, Egyptian Theatre
Jan. 27, 5:00 PM EST, Prospector Square Theatre

Get tickets here.

Still from When It Melts by Veerle Baetens, Courtesy of Sundance Institute.