There is a point during every Sundance Film Festival, usually as movie fans are trudging through the cold, slushy snow in Park City, Utah, when they wonder, why do they hold this in January? And yet, so often current events — most often of the political nature — are reflected not only in the films being screened on the mountain but also in the happenings around town.
In January 2009, huge crowds gathered to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration. In January 2017, 4,000 festivalgoers, including Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart and Chelsea Handler, marched down Main Street the day after President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. The following year, amid a considerable snowstorm, Jane Fonda, Gloria Allred and Tessa Thompson gathered protesters with fiery speeches to coincide with the one-year anniversary of his presidency.
The 2025 edition of Sundance will debut on Jan. 23, three days after Trump is inaugurated a second time, and the Sundance lineup suggests politics are on the mind of this year’s filmmakers.
In the five-part documentary series “Bucks County, USA,” Barry Levinson and Robert May take a close look at two 14-year-old girls, best friends despite their opposing political beliefs, living at the epicenter of the nation’s political divide.
The documentarian Sam Feder was shooting in Washington as recently as last week for “Heightened Scrutiny,” about the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio and his battle before the Supreme Court for transgender rights.
“The Librarians,” from Kim A. Snyder, tracks the efforts of workers in Texas, Florida and other states to protect democracy amid a wave of book bans, while “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” from Mstyslav Chernov (“20 Days in Mariupol”) follows a Ukrainian platoon on a mission to liberate a strategic village.
Two films approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from different angles: “Coexistence, My Ass!” tracks the Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi as she begins challenging audiences when “the elusive coexistence she’s spent her life working toward starts sounding like a bad joke.”
And the fictional “All That’s Left of You,” from Cherien Dabis, tells the story of three generations of Palestinians and how a grandfather’s forced displacement leads decades later to his grandson’s confronting Israeli soldiers at a West Bank protest.
“We always look to our artists to share what their viewpoints are and for them to inspire the conversation,” Kim Yutani, Sundance’s director of programming, said in an interview. “As we put the program together, it’s always about the balance and that’s our job. We leave the conversations in the hands of the artists and that’s what we hope emerges, in a really productive and interesting way.”
Counterbalancing the heavy subjects are some star power and levity.
The festival describes “Bubble & Squeak,” starring Himesh Patel, Steven Yeun and Dave Franco, as a film about “smuggling cabbages into a nation where cabbages are banned.” “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” being distributed by A24, stars Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Conan O’Brien and Danielle Macdonald in the tale of “a woman who is navigating her child’s mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.”
There is also the return of a pair of filmmakers who popped at Sundance decades ago.
Justin Lin, best known for the “Fast and Furious” franchise, will be back in Park City, 23 years after he showed “Better Luck Tomorrow,” the film that kickstarted his career, there. His new film, “Last Days,” focuses on a fictional missionary’s efforts to proselytize an uncontacted tribe on North Sentinel Island off India.
And Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”) will be back in the snow 26 years after debuting “Gods and Monsters,” the Ian McKellen-starrer that landed the filmmaker an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. His new movie, the musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” features Jennifer Lopez as Aurora, the fantasy woman conjured by a prisoner played by Tonatiuh. Diego Luna also co-stars.
Both films are looking for distribution — as are the majority of the movies debuting in both the U.S. dramatic competition and documentary competitions. Those 20 films are primarily from directors making their Sundance debuts.
“We put together a group of films that speak to and illuminate Sundance’s ever-present legacy and mission, which is discovery,” Eugene Hernandez, Sundance’s director of the festival, said, adding that 41 percent of the feature film directors are first-timers. “This is a year of discovery, just like the last 41 years of discovery at this festival.”
It’s all happening as Sundance prepares to say goodbye to its Park City headquarters. While a new home hasn’t yet been chosen, the festival will be moving out of the ski town to one of three new locales — Salt Lake City (with ancillary screenings still taking place in Park City); Boulder, Colo.; or Cincinnati — beginning in 2027. The winner will be determined by late winter or early spring.
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