On the eve of Sundance Film Festival (January 23-Februrary 2) many filmmakers and executives had already descended upon Park City for the 2025 edition. As attendees sample the blend of work from established talents and the promise of discoveries, amid the customary mingling and business side of things there will be real stories of heartbreak.
Scroll down for list of acquisition titles
The devastating LA County wildfires are likely to have impacted many from the Los Angeles region who make the journey to the Utah mountains. The writer-director team of Meera Menon and husband Paul Gleason behind Midnight zombie selection Didn’t Die have already given an interview about their predicament. They lost their home in Altadena, which was ravaged by the Eaton Fire, as did the film’s producer and editor Erica Fishman and her husband Geoffrey Boothby.
In the coming days attendees will learn to what extent, if any, the understandable preoccupation will slow down acquisitions activity beyond what it has already become. There will be deals; it is just that they take longer these days as systemic industry changes have turned US buyers in particular into a cautious breed as they reckon with a tricky landscape.
Streamers and studios tend to make the first big moves, and that could well be true this year, even though they have generally eased off the pedal as festival buyers. What will be telling is how the smaller independent buyers engage. They are fewer in number and some Toronto selections remain on the table.
Yet fortune favours the brave. Last year at Sundance, Magnolia Pictures snapped up the June Squibb action comedy Thelma and took it to more than $12m in wide release, becoming the distributor’s biggest hit. That echoed other notable festival acquisitions by independents throughout the year.
“Every year you just don’t know,” says Sony Pictures Classics co-founder Tom Bernard. Last year his company acquired Kneecap, which earned six Bafta nominations and is Ireland’s shortlisted Oscar submission. “Sundance to me is still about discovery when the obvious selections are getting gobbled up by the streamers.”
Another pressing matter is where Sundance will be headquartered from 2027 onwards. Park City has become a very expensive ski town, reflected in ever-increasing accommodation and restaurant prices, with a rash of corporate activations along Main Street that seem a far cry from the festival’s roots more than four decades ago.
Screen has heard from several sources that Sundance will relocate to Cincinnati, Ohio. Festival representatives pushed back on that last month, saying the decision had not been made and will be announced after this year’s edition. Cincinnati is one of three options, along with Boulder, Colorado, and Salt Lake City in tandem with a diminished Park City presence.
Bernard has a clear idea of where he would like to see Sundance relocate. “Boulder has an incredible college, it’s a liberal town,” he says. ”There are a lot of venues and affordable hotels between Denver and Boulder […] It would be incredibly exciting to see the festival reborn again.”
But first, to business. Below is a suggested list of 15 films expected to captivate buyers and audiences.
Beside each film we list the first public and P&I screenings. All times are in local Mountain Time.
Brides (UK)
Dir. Nadia Fall
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Debutante feature director and 2023 Screen Star of Tomorrow Fall has just taken up her new role as artistic director of the Young Vic and brings the story of a pair of teenage girls in 2015 who flee their troubled lives in a misguided plan to travel to Syria. The production shot in Wales, Turkey, and Italy and stars newcomer Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar from 2024 Sundance selection Layla.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 24, Egyptian Theatre, 6pm (premiere); Jan. 25, Holiday Village 2, 12,30pm (P&I).
Sales: Bankside Films
Bubble & Squeak
Dir. Evan Twohy
U.S Dramatic Competition
From a first-time director with a Black List script comes the madcap story of newlyweds running for their lives when they are accused of smuggling cabbages during a ban on the vegetable. Himesh Patel, Sarah Goldberg, Steven Yeun, and Dave Franco star, and Minari collaborators Christina Oh and Yeun produce.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 24, Eccles, 6.15pm (premiere); Jan 25, Holiday Village 4, 4pm (P&I).
Sales: WME Independent, CAA Media Finance
By Design
Dir. Amanda Kramer
NEXT
Another distinctly oddball entry stars Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Melanie Griffith, and Udo Kier in the body-swap taler of a woman and a chair. Kramer directed Please Baby Please, which opened the online Rotterdam festival in 2022.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 23, Library Centre, 6pm (premiere); Jan. 24, Holiday Village 1, 2,30pm (P&I).
Sales: Range Media Partners
Coexistence, My Ass! (USA-Fr)
Dir. Amber Fares
World Cinema Documentary Competition
Comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi creates a one-woman show about the struggle for equality in Israel/Palestine. When the coexistence begins to sound like a tasteless joke, she changes tack.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 26, Egyptian, 12pm midday (premiere); Jan. 27, Holiday Village 2, 6.30pm (P&I).
Sales: Autlook filmsales
Jimpa
Dir. Sophie Hyde
Premieres
Olivia Colman and John Lithgow star in Hyde’s follow-up to Sundance 2022 hit Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, in which a woman undertakes a life-changing trip to see her gay father in Amsterdam, with her nonbinary teenager in tow.
Screenings: Jan. 23, Eccles, 3pm (premiere); Jan. 23, Holiday Village 2, 8pm, (P&I).
Sales: Protagonist Pictures, CAA Media Finance
Kiss Of The Spider Woman
Dir. Bill Condon
Premieres
Diego Luna, Tonatiuh, and Jennifer Lopez lead Condon’s remake about two incarcerated men who bond over the plot of a Hollywood musical starring an iconic diva. A reimagining of the 1985 film and 1993 Tony-winning musical.
Screenings: Jan. 26, Eccles, 6pm (premiere); Jan. 27, Holiday Village 4, 10am (P&I).
Sales: WME Independent, CAA Media Finance
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Dir. David Borenstein
World Cinema Documentary Competition
A schoolteacher in occupied Ukraine goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 25, Egyptian, 12pm midday (premiere); Jan. 25, Holiday Village 2, 6.30pmn (P&I).
Sales: Cinetic; DR Sales
Peter Hujar’s Day
Dir. Ira Sachs
Premieres
Sundance uber-regular Sachs returns after last year’s Passages with a two-hander starring Ben Whishaw as the queer New York photographer Hujar and Rebecca Hall as his friend Linda Rosenkrantz. All set in a single room over the course of one day in 1974.
Screenings: Jan. 27, The Ray Theatre, 10am (premiere): Jan 27, Holiday Village 1, 5.30pm (P&I).
Sales: WME Independent; SBS International
Prime Minster (USA)
Dirs. Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Profile of the beloved former New Zealand leader over her five-year tenure.
Screenings: Jan. 24, Eccles, 12pm midday (premiere); Jan. 24, Holiday Village 4, 7pm (P&I).
Sales: CAA Media Finance
Rabbit Trap
Dir. Bryn Chainey
Midnight
Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen play a musician and her husband who relocate to Wales where their sounds disturb ancient magic. Elijah Wood is among the producers.
Screenings: Jan. 24, Eccles, 9.15pm (premiere): Jan .25, Holiday Village 3, 3pm (P&I).
Sales: Bankside Films, CAA Media Finance
Rebuilding
Dir. Max Walker-Silverman
Premieres
Sure to strike a chord after the ongoing tragedy in Los Angeles County, Rebuilding stars Josh O’Connor and Lily LaTorre in the story of a rancher who tries to move on after the family farm is lost in a wildfire. Walker-Silverman eturns with his second film after 2022 Sundance entry A Love Song.
Screenings: Jan. 26, Eccles, 3pm (premiere); Jan. 28, Holiday Village 2, 12.30pm (P&I).
Sales: CAA Media Finance, UTA Independent Film Group
Sukkwan Island
Dir. Vladimir de Fontenay
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Plans for a formative year in the Norwegian fjords in the remote Sukkwan Island, 13-year-old Roy and his father are plunged into a fight for survival. Swann Arlaud and Woody Norman star.
Available online for public
Screenings: Jan. 25, The Ray Theatre, 1.30pm (premiere); Jan. 26, Holiday Village 2, 3.30pm (P&I).
Sales: mK2
The Thing With Feathers
Dir. Dylan Southern
Premieres
Another story of an imperilled family in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays a father ot two young boys and grieving widower who must contend with a malign presence in his apartment.
Screenings: Jan. 25, Eccles, 9.45pm (premiere): Jan. 27, Holiday Village 4, 4pm (P&I).
Sales: UTA Independent Film Group, mk2 Films Sales
Together (Australia-USA)
Dir. Michael Shanks
Premieres
A timely body horror in light of the commercial and critical success of The Substance, Alison Brie and Dave Franco (who also produced) are the leads in an equally bonkers tale of a move to the countryside that tests a couple’s fragile bonds.
Screenings: Jan. 26, Eccles, 9.30pm (premiere); Jan. 27, Holiday Village 3, 12pm midday (P&I).
Sales: WME Independent
Train Dreams
Dir. Clint Bentley
Premieres
Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, and William H. Macy bring star power to the story of a day labourer on America’s railroads in the early 20th Century who experiences rapid change. Bentley directed 2021 Sundance selection Jockey and produced awards season hopeful Sing Sing, whose director Greg Kwedar co-wrote this screenplay with Bentley.
Screenings: Jan. 26, Library Centre, 9am (premiere): Jan. 27, Holiday Village 3, 6pm (P&I).
Salt Lake Celebration Film
Sales: WME Independent.
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