Day One: the Bronze Makes A Raunchy Premiere, John Legend Shines at What Happened, Mi Simone?

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups from the previous days events.

The Bronze by Jeremy Kinser

While introducing The Bronze, a deeply raunchy and often boisterously funny comedy that opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Theater, Festival Director John Cooper informed the audience that there have been very few times when he's only three-quarters through watching a film and becomes convinced the film will make the lineup, regardless of what his staff thinks. My staff didn't argue this time, he added.

Prior to the screening, Cooper brought the film's director, Bryan Buckley, whose short film Asad was Oscar-nominated in 2013, on stage to introduce the cast. Before he called up his leading lady, The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch, he described her to the audience as the woman you will hate in the first five minutes of this film.

There wasn't much dispute from the audience here, either. If the crowd didn't actually hate Hope Ann Greggory, Rauch's past-her-prime Olympic Bronze medal-winning gymnast, they were for the most part hilariously horrified by the despicable behavior of her character.

Actor Gary Cole at the premiere of The Bronze.

Sundance Institute | Stephen Speckman We first encounter the now washed-up Hope Ann living in small Amherst, Ohio, masturbating to VHS footage of her Olympic glory days, stealing money from the mailbag of her postman father (Gary Cole), snorting allergy medicine, and generally making life as miserable as possible for everyone in her orbit. She's an even more crass version of Tonya Harding by way of South Park's Cartman with perhaps some of the scheming of Election's Tracy Flick tossed in for good measure.

Yet, following the death of her former instructor, Hope Ann gets a shot at redemption when tricked into training another local gymnast (Haley Lu Richardson) with a chance at Olympic glory, as well as a possible romance with the shy, sweet manager of the gym (Thomas Middleditch), who she deems Twitchy due to a few nervous tics.

Many of the questions from the audience focused on an outrageously-staged sex scene that featured cartwheels, pirouettes and pole vaults. Buckley asked the audience to stick around as there'd be an audition for a similar sex scene in the film's sequel, while Rauch, who co-wrote the screenplay with husband Winston Rauch, said, As for the sex scene, you write what you know.

Rauch said she and her husband were inspired to write the comedy because they've always been fascinated by the bronze medal and how it's become an international symbol for mediocrity and how that affects the winner. Basically the whole world forgets about it except for the small town you live in, she said. The idea of celebrity in a small town just really fascinated us.

The Summer of Sangaile by Eric Hynes

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival was off to a flying start with The Summer of Sangaile, a coming of age story about a young woman who channels her anxieties and insecurities into dreams of joining a death-defying aerial show. While young Sangaile is in danger of retreating entirely into a state of quietly coping, she's guided into enjoying life and conquering her fears and opening up sexually by a beautiful eccentric named Auste.

As programmer Trevor Groth said before the screening, The Summer of Sangaile is the first Lithuanian film to ever play at the Festival. Though director Alant Kava t now splits her time between France and Lithuania, she said in the post-screening Q&A that is was essential to set this particular story of emerging womanhood in the land where she was born and raised. And while the film's fixation on stunt piloting may seem like a charming quirk to American audiences, she noted that it's actually a common strain of Lithuanian culture.

Lithuanians have an obsessive relationship with planes and flying, she said. I spent a lot of time at air shows as a child. When I started thinking about my adolescence I realized it was a perfect metaphor for my character someone fighting to become herself. To be a pilot you have to have so much strength. And though there are some autobiographical elements to the story, Kava t said that there's a deeper sense of belonging at play. There's some of me in the film, she said, but a lot of Lithuania.

Aist Dirzi t & Julija Steponaityt . Ryan Kobane

During some of the more intense scenes during the world premiere screening, young actresses Julija Steponaityt and Aist Dirzi t both making their acting debuts could be seen supportively holding hands. Afterwards, Kava t discussed the scenes in which Steponaityt not only had to fly in a somersaulting stunt plane, but because of the small cockpit actually had to film herself. It's only safe to fly in those planes for 11 minutes because of the G Forces, and so Steponaityt had to get footage for two different scenes, one unhappy and one happy, as Kava t said. At first it was hard, but on the third day I felt wonderful, the actress said. In fact she found it far more difficult to shoot the film's sex scenes a far different fear of flying.

What Happened, Miss Simone? by Jeremy Kinser

Taking its title from a Maya Angelou quote, the riveting documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? uncovers the complicated true story of Nina Simone, a remarkably gifted, but deeply troubled and often exasperating woman, who had found her voice in music and became an iconic figure to many Americans struggling for civil rights during the turbulent 1960s. The opening night film screened out of competition and will premiere on Netflix this spring.

Director Liz Garbus, a Sundance vet

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