'Navalny' director hits right notes in Sundance fiction debut

Roher, whose "Navalny" scooped Best Documentary Oscar for its poignant telling of the life of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, shifted gears into fiction for "Tuner," starring Dustin Hoffman and Leo Woodall.

Part odd-couple, part heartbreaking romance and part thriller, "Tuner" was the answer to the question: "Now what?" after Roher scooped Hollywood's biggest prize in 2023, the director said.

"I was 29 and I was sitting there thinking to myself: 'What... do I do now?" Roher told an audience in Park City, Utah.

"I actually fell into this little rut... I didn't feel like making anything. I was really scared and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the moment and everything."

A chance encounter with a piano tuner -- the husband of his wife's friend -- set him wondering what this previously unconsidered profession was all about.

"He was like, 'it's about atrophy and entropy and the forces of the universe'," he said. "'They want to pull these strings out of tune, and it's my job to keep them in tune so people can play'."

"And I was like: let me write this down."

Hoffman -- in stunning form as the eccentric owner of a piano tuning business who refuses to wear his hearing aids -- plays mentor and father figure to Woodall's Nikki, a talented former pianist who had to stop playing because his oversensitive hearing makes any kind of loud noise impossible.

Alone on a tuning job one evening in a wealthy house, Nikki meets a gang of thieves who discover his incredible hearing means he can crack safes.

What starts out as a side-earner quickly degenerates, and Nikki is thrust into dangerous situations that jeopardise his burgeoning relationship with a gifted composition student, played by Havana Rose Liu.

Roher said the process of making a feature film had been fascinating, not least because after years in documentary, he was suddenly working with actors.

"Everything they do is just bizarre, but interesting and fascinating," he said. "I have tremendous respect for them, for their abilities, for the way that they operate. But I don't understand it."

Working with a veteran like Hoffman, whom he called a "legend" of the screen, however, helped put him at ease.

"He treated me like it was 1968, I was Mike Nichols, and we were shooting (Hoffman's breakout film) 'The Graduate'.

"He called me sir. He called me boss. And he just loved being there."
Rescue
Elsewhere at Sundance on Thursday, filmgoers got their first look at "Hanging By A Wire."

Director Mohammed Ali Naqvi's pacey documentary tells the real life story of the rescue of Pakistani schoolboys stranded hundreds of feet above a Himalayan valley in a rusting cable car when wires snap.

Told largely through footage filmed by the hundreds of terrified villagers who gathered below, the film showcases how the ubiquity of the cellphone and connections to social media affect the way that events unfold.

It is through grainy online footage that a local journalist first becomes aware of the drama. Her report, boosted by stunning drone footage provided by a local amateur, alerts the international media and galvanises a rescue response.

The military, police, a local zipline entrepreneur and a have-a-go hero are all involved in the pulse-racing rescue.

For Naqvi, the pacing and feel of the film needed to be as urgent and driving as if it were fiction.

"I love action thriller films from the '80s and 90s, and those are some of the films that have inspired us to make this," Naqvi told a Sundance audience.

Other highlights of the opening day included debut director Louis Paxton's dark comedy "The Incomer," which is infused with Scottish folklore.

Domhnall Gleeson ("Harry Potter") plays the man from the council sent to evict oddball islanders, Isla and Sandy (Gayle Rankin and Grant O'Rourke).

Inevitably, he is sucked in to the weird island life, in a film that explores loneliness and fitting in.

Sundance runs until February 1.