Cult filmmaker and staunch advocate of LGBTQ+ rights, Gregg Araki sits at the centre of this year’s Sundance Film Festival in London, with a ménage à trois of films. The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin and his 1987 debut Three Bewildered People In The Night will surely speak to a new generation of cinemagoers currently dealing with rising bigotry in this digital age. Sundance celebrates the outsider spirit with films that explore alienation, alternative lifestyles, the many nuances of modern love and the joyful culture that explodes from those rallying against the status quo. 

Romance, heartbreak and passion collide in Ira Sachs’ steamy and darkly humorous depiction of tumultuous love, Passages. It stars Franz Rogowski as a film director with a fiery temperament who leaves his husband (Ben Whishaw) of 15 years to start an affair with a woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Going back and forth between the two, his actions create chaos.

Another threesome of sorts plays out in playwright Celine Song’s tenderly crafted Past Lives (pictured top), an impressive debut and deeply moving portrayal of connections lost and found. Greta Lee stars as Nora, who after emigrating from South Korea to Canada and finally New York, begins to wonder what happened to her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung (Teo Yoo’s facial expressions convey a multitude of emotions). Her husband Arthur (John Magaro) encourages a meet-up but feelings of insecurity and doubt eventually creep in. 

The meaning of family and the aftermath of grief are explored with creative flair in Charlotte Regan’s magical realism comedy Scrapper which opens the festival. It stars an as ever excellent Harris Dickinson as an estranged father who returns to a London estate to take care of his daughter (noteworthy newcomer Lola Campbell) following the death of her mother.

The Sofia Coppola-produced Fairyland (based on Alysia Abbott’s memoir) follows another single father, though this one is set in 1970s and 80s San Francisco, with Scoot McNairy’s Steve coming to terms with the sudden death of his wife and his own sexuality. It’s told from the perspective of his daughter (Emilia Jones) as she comes of age in a progressive, queer-friendly household and watches the activism of that time play out.

At time of print Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Mutt doesn’t have distribution in the UK. It’s a quietly powerful and beautifully shot day-in-the-life drama following a trans man (the superb Lio Mehiel) living in New York and dealing with a barrage of family and loved ones’ reactions to his transition. 

Sundance Film Festival, Picturehouse Central, London, Thursday 6–Sunday 9 July.