Category: Festival

An inventive horror film about a Scottish film censor who begins to unravel when she’s assigned to review a rather disturbing film; a whimsical coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old who is struggling to cope with the death of her mother; a moody tale set in the countryside of France that delves into the complexity of polyamory… These are just a few of the geographically diverse, genre-spanning stories being told at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival by women filmmakers in their first features. If you’re looking for some documentary fare, you can experience the transformative dance of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in Ailey, or follow chief reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions and emerge as India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women in Writing with Fire, or watch as students at Horizon High School in El Paso train to become police officers and Border Patrol agents in At the Ready.In the Festival’s New Frontier section—which highlights work by independent artists and creative technologists innovating the art and form of story at the convergence of diverse forms of creative expression—you won’t want to miss women-led projects like Beyond the Breakdown, a world-building browser performance where Festivalgoers engage with an AI + human collaborative team, created by a trio of artists including Women at Sundance Fellows Lauren Lee McCarthy and Grace Lee, Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler, inspired by the ideas of the late great science-fiction writer; 4 Feet High VR, an immersive work that centers around the perspective of a 17-year-old wheelchair user as she navigates her new high school; and Prison X – Chapter 1: The Devil and the Sun, which takes the audience into the dreams and nightmares that inhabit an infamous Bolivian jail.

Festival Offers Robust Online Platform and Announces Screening Partnerships with
Independent Cinemas and Cultural Organizations
PARK CITY, UTAH — The nonprofit Sundance Institute today unveiled plans for the seven-day 2021 Sundance Film Festival, offered digitally via a custom-designed online platform (festival.sundance.org) alongside drive-ins, independent arthouses, and a network of local community partnerships.

As we begin our countdown to the Sundance Film Festival—stay tuned for 2021 lineup details, and sign up for a Festival account here—we’re launching a new series, Festival Rewind. This week, we’re time-traveling back to 1991, the year of landmark independent films like Slacker, Trust, and Daughters of the Dust. Join us as we remember the award winners, the big moments, and the Festival firsts.

Angel Manuel Soto’s Charm City Kings made its debut at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and recently began streaming on HBO Max. Hear what the project’s director and cast had to say at the film’s world premiere.Based on the documentary 12 O’Clock Boys, about a young boy who dreams of joining the same notorious group of Baltimore dirt-bike riders his late brother used to ride with, Charm City Kings is a jolt of adrenaline to the coming-of-age genre, with a star-making performance by Jahi Di’Allo Winston as 13-year-old Mouse.

At the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Maite Alberdi’s documentary The Mole Agent had its world premiere. Below, hear what the filmmaker had to say in Park City; then go watch the project, which is now available to rent on most streaming platforms. “All right.

Eugene Kotlyarenko’s thriller Spree—a selection at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival—begins streaming on Friday, August 14. Below, hear what the writer/director had to say in Park City at the film’s world premiere.“I’m going to livestream this.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s film Boys State begins streaming on Apple TV+ today. The project won the U.S.

When Palm Springs premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in January, it felt like the temperature rose (at least a few degrees, anyway) in snowy Park City. Max Barbakow’s buoyant comedy starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti begins streaming on Hulu (and playing select drive-ins) today, offering something of a virtual vacation into another dimension of time and space. Below, see what Barbakow and his actors had to say at the film’s world premiere.

Tabitha Jackson is the director of the Sundance Film Festival.
Dear friends,
As we plan for our 2021 Festival — my first in the Director’s chair — and with submissions now open, I wanted to give you an early insight into how we are thinking. This is not an announcement, but rather an invitation into the process of building something together this year.

Miss Juneteenth is now streaming—read our report from the film’s world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival below, and don’t miss our interview with the film’s director, Channing Godfrey Peoples.“As programmers, there’s no better feeling than discovering a film that unveils a special new talent, a filmmaker whose voice and vision and craftsmanship immediately make you excited about the prospect of getting to show it at Sundance,” said senior programmer Heidi Zwicker at the world premiere of the U.S.

This post was originally published after Josephine Decker’s film Shirley premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The project arrived on Hulu on June 5.“I thought it might be a nice thing to start the film off with a round of applause for the real Shirley Jackson, who’s a fucking badass,” announced director Josephine Decker at the premiere of her new film Shirley, which stars Elisabeth Moss as the author of such disturbing literary classics as The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House.

Benjamin Ree’s documentary The Painter and the Thief won a World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. On Friday, May 22, the film’s distributor, Neon, has teamed up with Filmbot to present a special opening-night screening with Ree as well as the project’s subjects, Barbora Kysilkov and (the painter) and Karl-Bertil Nordland (the thief) at 8:00 p.m.