Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden’s Freaky Tales

Published on November 11, 2023

The tandem of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden have been in the indie filmmaking business now for nearly two decades and have a direct link to Sundance’s past. They made a return to the independent film scene last January with Freaky Tales, this despite their detour to work on television projects and a popcorn film like Captain Marvel. For their latest oeuvre they enlisted the likes of Pedro Pascal, re-teamed with Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Jack Champion, Dominique Thorne, Keir Gilchrist, Ji-young Yoo and sadly the departed Angus Cloud for a shoot that would have taken place at the beginning of the year in Oakland. As we recall, Fleck and Boden broke out big at Sundance way back with Half Nelson (2006).

Gist: Set in Oakland in 1987, this is a wholly original, immersive film inspired by Ryan’s experience growing up in the bay. The film is comprised of four interconnected stories each featuring distinct characters, real life locations and noteworthy historical events (some real, some imagined).

Production Co./Producers: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden, MACRO Film Studios’ Jelani Johnson and Poppy Hanks.

Prediction: Premieres.

Sales: TBD.

Eric Lavallée

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).