Sundance Film Festival
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Hits & Misses: The Sundance Class of 2025
By conventional measures, the 2020s have not been very good for the movies. At mid-decade, there’s the nagging sense that the pre-COVID years represented glory days that will never be recaptured. Corporate media consolidation, the dominance of streaming and short-form content and the rapid rise of A.I. have far-reaching implications for the future of the medium. In many ways, independent film and filmmakers are in a far more perilous position than ever, increasingly squeezed out on screens big and small by an algorithmically driven and politically pressured media ecosystem irrevocably moving toward the middlebrow, mediocre and mainstream. Yet, independent filmmakers, […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Dec 22, 2025 -
Sundance Film Festival Announces 2026 Feature Slate, Including Competition Titles
The Sundance Institute announced today 90 feature films, including the competition titles, and seven episodic projects that will screen at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, the final edition to be held in Park City, UT. (Eight other projects were previously announced as part of the Park City Legacy program.) Among them are new films from John Wilson, Josephine Decker, Kogonada, Gregg Araki, Alex Gibney and Antoine Fuqua; three films featuring Charli xcx (Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Aidan Zamiri’s A24 release, The Moment, and Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist), and, as always, a number of first-time features, including films from Ramzi […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 10, 2025 -
Robert Redford: A Remembrance
On the sad occasion of Robert Redford’s passing, filmmaker Eva Vives pens this guest post on her interactions with the legendary actor, director, environmentalist, activist and Sundance Institute founder. — Editor I first met Redford by chance. Pete Sollett and I had gone to meet Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, at the Sundance offices in New York after our short, Five Feet High and Rising, had won the festival. There was some kind of snafu, and I was asked to wait in an office while they sorted it out. I don’t remember where […]
by Eva Vives on Sep 17, 2025 -
Sundance Institute Announces Boulder, Colorado, as the New Home for the Sundance Film Festival Beginning in 2027
The Sundance Institute announced today that, beginning in 2027, Boulder, Colorado will be the new home for its Sundance Festival. Commented Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute acting CEO in a press release, “Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town. It is a place where the Festival can build and flourish. This is the beginning of a bold, new journey as we invite everyone to be part of our community and to be entertained and inspired. We can’t imagine a better fit than Boulder.” From the press release: Together with the Boulder host committee, the Institute envisions […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2025 -
“Everyone in the Indie world is Full of Passion”: Producer Julie Waters on Oh, Hi!
Oh, Hi! is director Sophie Brooks’ follow-up to 2017’s The Boy Downstairs about the mismatched desires of Iris and Isaac (Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman, respectively) as they attempt to rekindle their romance. The film screens as part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres sections. Oh, Hi! is also the debut feature producing credit by Julie Waters. Below, Waters discusses transitioning from the studio system to the indie world and the guiding lights who helped her succeed. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer interviews here. Filmmaker: How did you connect with this filmmaker and wind up producing the film? […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 26, 2025 -
Sundance 2025: The Perfect Neighbor, Sly Lives
Stagnation (long-term) and change (imminent) hang over this year’s Sundance. In 2027, the festival will relocate to one of three finalist sites—potentially still a Salt Lake City/Park City split, with the balance of power now reversed between the latter and former, through the rumor vine says Cincinnati or Boulder are more likely. (Please, lord, deliver us unto the midwest or thereabouts.) A Variety article headlined “Sundance in Cincinnati? Hollywood Worries Film Festival Won’t Be the Same Without Park City” actually reports nothing of the sort; the voices regretting Sundance’s imminent departure to a less demanding altitude come from two Utah […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 24, 2025 -
“14 Inches From a Very Personal Form of Murder”: Steven Soderbergh on Camera as Character and His Sundance Horror Film, Presence
The following interview of Steven Soderbergh about Presence was originally published last year when the film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. It is being reposted today as the film is released in theaters from NEON. — Editor A heady, elegantly-constructed ghost story, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence has a bunch of half-buried threads, a couple of perfectly-timed scares, and a horrific close-up of an act of violence that mesmerizes the camera—just as horror films mesmerize their audience. The camera is the star here, and not merely because its sustained, floating movements, its sudden turns and retreats, its anxious hovering display […]
by Amy Taubin on Jan 24, 2025 -
2025 Sundance Film Festival Announces 93 Projects Across Its Feature Film and Episodic Programs
The Sundance Institute announced today the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Among the films are new pictures from returning filmmakers Cherien Dabis, Bill Condon, Amalia Ulman, Ira Sachs, and Amir “Questlove” Thompson, while in the U.S. and World Dramatic Competitions, all 20 filmmakers are making their first appearance at the festival. Additionally, 41% of the entire feature film program across the festival consists of films by first-time directors. Those statistics, says Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programing, in an interview with Filmmaker, are “a reminder of how much […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 11, 2024 -
Solutions Based: Who Should Save Independent Film?
The Sundance Film Festival is a time for movie watching, deal making, talent scouting and, often, much soul searching about the state and future of the independent film industry. This year in particular there was no shortage of media coverage and conversations about distribution and the sustainability of the independent business. As Sundance CEO Joana Vicente told The Ringer’s “The Town” podcast, “Everyone is thinking about solutions… How can we help and figure out how all these films find a home, and what’s our role in the distribution exhibition piece?” For Sundance’s more commercial films—of which there were several this […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Mar 18, 2024 -
“Can Someone Who Uses a Wheelchair Access this Location?” | Amber Sealey, Out of My Mind
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? There was a practical aspect to choosing our locations and sets for Out of My Mind that is not usually at the forefront of filmmakers’ minds: Can someone who uses a wheelchair access this location and every aspect of this location? Our […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2024
