Wrapping up our conversations with fellows from the 2024 Sundance Screenwriters Lab, we met with a filmmaker who promptly reminded us that there is no singular path from point A to … the day a feature gets its first clapperboard slap. Take, for instance, Christian Moldes, a filmmaker who has worn acting, writing, directing, and editing who revisited a proposed project that was conceived during a different era and political climate reality. A buddy comedy, Quince Kings looks to merge hot topics about the El Paso, Texas border, immigration, with a look at friendship and some of the quirks of quinceañeras. In our free-flowing chat we got a real sense of the world these characters inhibit, and some foundational steps to revisiting a project on paper — allowing for an idea that might sound good in theory but where a gestation period and time away would have been beneficial.
Sundance project synopsis: Sebastian and Freddy, undocumented immigrant brothers, infiltrate as many quinceñeras as they can to assimilate and provide for their destitute family in El Paso, Texas. They find themselves at odds with one another when Sebastian falls for the mayor’s daughter, Regina, a privileged young woman with a lot to lose.
Throughout this week, we’ll be featuring profiles of several fellows from the recent 2024 Sundance Screenwriters Labs, all of whom we had the pleasure of speaking with during the Sundance Film Festival. Some of these projects are slated to become future films and may even debut in Park City, while a smaller fraction might not find their way to the big screen. However, being part of this select group serves as a significant source of encouragement and progression within the film industry. What’s particularly inspiring is witnessing how each of these distinctive voices is crafting original works spanning various genres, often exploring themes of politics and social engagement through cinema.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
