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We watched many films at the Sundance Film Festival, and we're recommending some of the best things we saw this year.

They include a thrilling debut from a writer on The Bear, a timely doc about the wave of book bands across America,

in a bizar bizarre horror comedy starring

Alison Brie and Dave Franco.

I'm Aisha Harris, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is film critic and

senior film programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center, Monica Castillo.

Welcome back, Monica.

Glad to be here.

Great to have you.

And also here is entertainment journalist Christina Escobar.

She's the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Latina Media Pinto Co.

Welcome back to you to Christina.

Thanks for having me.

Awesome.

Great to have you here.

So Christina, Monica, and I all went out to Snowy Park City, Utah to cover the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

I ran into both of you there.

It was great seeing you both.

And now we're all back. And we're going to share some of the films that are worth keeping an eye out for as they

hopefully, fingers crossed, get wider release in the coming months. So let's get into it. Monica, I'm

going to start with you. This is a movie that we actually sat next to each other for.

...