“Monsters and Men”
Cast: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chanté Adams, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan
Synopsis: Having filmed the unjust murder of a street hustler by a white police officer, a young man must decide what to do with this life-altering footage.
What You Need To Know: Helmer Reinaldo Marcus Green taps into the Black Lives Matter movement and police injustice still troubling the nation while crafting a tense, humanist morality play about putting yourself in the line of fire while weighing the upside of doing the right thing. Green is one of Filmmaker Magazines coveted 25 New Faces Of Independent Film and given his culturally hot subject, all eyes will surely be on this one.
“The Tale”
Cast: Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Jason Ritter, Elizabeth Debicki, Ellen Burstyn, Common
Synopsis: A journalist is forced to re-examine her first sexual relationship and come to realize the story she has told herself is not the one her teenage self experienced.
What You Need To Know: A narrative about how we cope with trauma and the stories we tell ourselves to survive, given the painful, but necessary #MeToo movement where millions of women are re-examining their sexual pasts, Jennifer Fox’s fragmented, memory-shifting drama sounds absolutely prescient and vital.
“The Miseducation of Cameron Post”
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck, John Gallagher Jr., Jennifer Ehle
Synopsis: A teenage girl caught having a sexual encounter with the prom queen is forced into gay conversion therapy center by her conservative legal guardians.
What You Need To Know: Writer, director, and star of “Appropriate Behavior,” Desiree Akhavan made quite the splash in 2014 with her indie debut which makes ‘Cameron Post,’ featuring a starry cast, one of the most anticipated films of the fest.
“Juliet, Naked”
Director Jesse Peretz
Cast: Cast Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O’Dowd
Synopsis: Tracks the unlikely romance between a woman and an elusive singer-songwriter who also happens to be the obsession of her boyfriend.
What You Need To Know: There’s a lot of talent involved in this one including its director Jesse Peretz, who’s perhaps now best known as the lead helmer on HBO’s “Girls,” and that producer, Judd Apatow, is along for the ride here too along with Bonafide, the producers on all the Alexander Payne movies. Hopefully it hasn’t been screenwritten to death, but one of the writers on the project is Tamara Jenkins (“The Savages”), and another is Jim Taylor, who often collaborates with the aforementioned Payne. It’s also based on Nick Hornby’s novel of the same name, and with this much cachet to the project it’s likely either amazing or awful, but we’re in. Fun fact: Kate Winslet was once attached to star.
“An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn”
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Jemaine Clement, Matt Berry, Craig Robinson
Synopsis: A woman’s unsatisfying marriage takes a turn for the worse when a mysterious man from her past comes to town to perform an event called “An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn; For One Magical Night Only.”
What You Need To Know: Does it sound strange and really weird? Well, it’s in the NEXT section, preserved for oddities (check) and it’s directed by Jim Hosking, the provocative filmmaker behind the divisive Sundance picture, “The Greasy Strangler.” It apparently ranges from romantic comedy to sheer absurdism, so this one should be feverishly fun at the very least.
