Features

While the Sundance Film Festival is set to find a new home in 2027 (three locations are currently vying for the spot), for now, the annual event remains in Park City, Utah, beginning tomorrow, January 23, and running through Monday, February 3. Sundance—one of the most prominent and anticipated festivals in the industry—is known for its commitment to an eclectic mix of content, from feature films to indies, documentaries, shorts, animation, and episodic television. And this year’s lineup, as in years past, boasts several projects bearing the work of School of Visual Arts alumni and faculty. 

Following up his 2024 Sundance appearance with The Greatest Night in Pop, his documentary on the writing and recording of the hit 1985 song “We Are the World,” filmmaker Bao Nguyen (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) returns with The Stringer, about ​​one of the most infamous and scarring images of the 20th century: a young Vietnamese girl, Kim Phúc, running down a road after being burned by napalm during the Vietnam War. Nguyen’s documentary investigates a little-known scandal behind the photograph, and the identity of a man heretofore only known only as “the stringer.”

Artist and filmmaker Zackary Drucker (BFA 2005 Photography) is also no stranger to Sundance: Her last film at the festival was 2023’s The Stroll, a documentary about New York City’s transgender community in the 1980s and ’90s; her latest documentary, Enigma (previously April & Ashley), chronicles the story of two trans pioneers whose legacies were shaped by how they navigated public scrutiny of their identities.

Another Sundance regular, documentarian David Osit (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film), returns with his latest, Predators, about the rise and staggering fall of the popular To Catch a Predator television series and the world that it helped to create.

Co-directed by Sara Khaki (MFA 2012 Social Documentary Film), the documentary Cutting Through Rocks (اوزاک یوللار) centers on Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman of her Iranian village who runs into contentious issues with her dogmatic community for aiming to break long-held patriarchal traditions.

Jamie Deradorian-Delia (MFA 2020 Social Documentary Film) was the story producer, and Adam Evans (MFA 2020 Social Documentary Film) was co-editor on the documentary Free Leonard Peltier about the incarcerated Native American activist Leonard Peltier and his long-contested conviction for murder. (On his last day in office, U.S. President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence.)

Kirill Yeretsky (BFA 2005 Computer Art) was both the animation and art director for Hoops, Hopes, and Dreams, which chronicles the untold story of how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and an all-star team of civil-rights activists took to basketball courts to rally young voters while winning the hearts of communities.

Although filmmaker/producer Daniela Alatorre (MFA 2015 Social Documentary Film)—who produced last year’s festival entry Igualada, about a Black rural activist’s historic presidential campaign in Colombia—does not have a project slated for this year’s festival lineup, she’ll be in attendance as a juror in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Finally, keep an eye out for former SVA faculty member Gary Panter, who created the spring 2020 SVA subway poster, which had an encore run in MTA stations last summer. Panter, who designed the sets for the beloved children’s series Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (1986–90) can be seen in the documentary Pee Wee as Himself, which celebrates the life and work of the late Paul Reubens.