Some Powerful Film Finds at SlamDance 2023

Don’t think of Slam Dance as an also-ran to Sundance!

It is established by a wild bunch of filmmakers who wanted to showcase the unfiltered voice of independent artists, Slamdance is an ongoing experiment that has proven, year after year, when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, the independent and grassroots film communities can do it themselves.

This year, Slamdance happened from January 20–26 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. Of course SlamDance offers its own unique and fascinating quarry of indie films that don’t make it into Sundance but are just-as or even-more intriguing.

We got to watch a few of them and here are our reviews:

The Underbug

Rating: 8/10

Director: Shujaat Saudagar

Writers: Abbas Dalal, Hussain Dalal, Shujaat Saudagar

Style: Horror

Time: 68 minutes

Trailer: vimeo.com/780051109

The first few minutes of this film are languid and luscious. A snail skulks across a log, and it’s all scenes of a secret world in nature: a fuzzy caterpillar, a grasshopper, lush rain, distant thunder. The world is secret, slow, dark and dangerous. They seem otherworldly, until a man is walking through.

No words are spoken for a very long time, and when they are, two men confront each other. Are you Hindu or Muslim? Where are you from? Are…