Jason and I have gone to the Sundance Film Festival for many years now. This year, attending and going were not synonymous as we attended from our couch. Each show did come with a Q&A though, which is our favorite part of the festival. Unintentionally, we only saw documentaries. I have documented those docs below. Spoiler alert: I’d recommend all of them.

In the Same Breath follows the events in Wuhan, China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and ties them jarringly to the USA’s COVID mishaps. This documentary reveals the alarming influence of misplaced trust and invented facts and how those propagated the pandemic’s spread and death toll in both countries. As the director, Nanfu Wang, said in the Q&A regarding the similarities between China’s concealment of information and the lies spewed by some government officials here in the U.S., “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean easier access to the truth.” In closing the film, she comments, “I have lived under authoritarianism, and I have lived in a society that calls itself free; in both systems, ordinary people become casualties of their leaders’ pursuit of power.” Many of the picture’s filmers and subjects in China risked government retaliation and even death to supply footage. Since it was shot in the midst of COVID-19, all of its interviews were done remotely, but you’d never guess it.

Bring Your Own Brigade is about the horrific wildfires in California in recent years. It doesn’t take the easy route with climate change as the absolute explanation for these deadly blazes. Instead, it intertwines fragments of the complex system proliferating these ever-escalating forces, including climate change. What are the other factors? European arrogance and its assumption that humans can control nature is a contributor. Euro-Americans have ignored Natives’ awareness of the land for centuries, and we are doing it still. Wildfires have always happened in California, but their potential was once lessened through controlled burning. Other influences? Buffer zones between wild areas and cities have slowly been filled with homes making them ineffectual safeguards.

Bring Your Own Brigade contains a scene I could barely stomach viewing. It takes place at a town meeting in the city of Paradise, which lost 85 inhabitants and 11,000 homes in a matter of hours due to the Camp Fire in 2018. In this assembly, residents battle firefighting experts over simple building codes that would reduce the severity of future fires, like leaving plant-less perimeters around houses, in the name of individual freedom. How could people who understand the horrific power of fire in a way few of us ever will fight against their safety and the safety of their neighbors? It was an eerie reminder of the struggles America has faced this last year. For as formidable as human hubris and self-deception are, they are no match for nature’s indifferent might.

Writing with Fire, our third documentary, follows the all-women team at the Indian newspaper Khabar Lahariya over the last five years. These women courageously reveal social injustices and government scandals through their journalism while combating personal discrimination due to their gender and membership in the Dalit caste, the category once referred to as “untouchables.” Although this film focuses on issues in India, the societal and political problems it examines, like systematic inequality and the distraction antics of politicians, are echoed everywhere. This film won the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact for Change. If you want to see an empowering movie, this is a great one.

Taming the Garden is an unexpected story about rare, giant trees being uprooted and transported to the private garden of Georgia’s former prime minister. I’m not talking about those sticks you get at the nursery. These “collector” specimens weigh more than a million pounds and many of them are over a century old. This film made me feel a mix of awe over the technical wonders utilized to move these trees and disgust over how the whims of the powerful can be made reality at any expense. From massive excavations to cutting powerlines, nothing is outside the influence of this billionaire… and all just to fill his garden with 200 unusual trees.

Due to some misunderstandings about the new online process for the festival, Jason and I didn’t get to see all of our last documentary, Flee. This animated movie is about the experiences of a refugee fleeing his home in Afghanistan. The portion we saw was compelling, and the film won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category. We look forward to seeing it in its entirety when it is released.

Jason and I didn’t have to wait in any lines at the Sundance Film Festival this year or get to catch up with friends while waiting in lines, but we got to participate in fantastic discussions with filmmakers- via a screen of course. It wasn’t a typical Sundance experience, but then again, one of the best things about the Sundance Film Festival is that you never know what you are going to get.