Sundance films target gun violence in America

Gun violence in America has taken centrestage at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where four films focusing on the divisive issue and its impact are making their debut.

The films, including Newtown — a harrowing documentary on the aftermath of the 2012 massacre at a school in Connecticut in which 20 children died — are sure to amplify the debate about gun control in the US where mass shootings have become commonplace. They are also being shown against the backdrop of a presidential race in which gun violence is a hot-topic issue. “I wanted this to be an intimate portrait that would break through desensitisation,” Kim Snyder, the director of Newtown, told a panel discussion at the festival. “My main goal was to try and pierce through what I think is dangerously happening where none of us can take in these repeated incidents.” Newtown looks closely at a broken community as it tries to come to terms with a mass shooting that horrified the nation and was considered a watershed moment in the debate about gun violence.