Features

The Sundance Film Festival—one of the most prominent and anticipated festivals in the industry, known for its commitment to an eclectic mix of content, including feature films, indies, documentaries, shorts, animation, and episodic television—opens this weekend and runs through Sunday, February 1. And, as usual, the College has a strong presence at the festival, with this year’s lineup including several projects by School of Visual Arts alumni.

Cinematographer Jenni Morello (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) is behind the camera on The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, a timely documentary that follows a father-to-be trying to make sense of what’s happening with “the AI insanity,” weighing both the existential dangers and the technology’s promise.

Artist and filmmaker Zackary Drucker (BFA 2005 Photography) is a consulting producer on Barbara Forever, director Brydie O’Connor’s archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer—woven from a kinetic tapestry of archival footage and guided by Hammer’s own voice.

Cinematographer Greta Zozula (BFA 2010 Film) shot Josephine, a drama centering on an eight-year-old who accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park and begins acting out in search of control and safety. Writer-director Beth de Araújo’s film stays close to that destabilized perspective, with Zozula’s cinematography sharpening the unease as the experience continues to haunt Josephine and her family.

Animator Chad Sikora (BFA 2007 Computer Art) contributed work to Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, director Alex Gibney’s documentary that draws on previously unseen footage captured by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, following his recovery and the restoration of his spirit after the 2022 attack—an account inspired by Rushdie’s memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

Producer Minos Papas (BFA 2004 Film and Video) is behind Take Me Home, Liz Sargent’s feature-length debut drama, which centers on a woman with a cognitive disability who cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of mutual need. When a Florida heat wave shatters the family’s routine, the film traces an uncertain path toward independence—and a community of chosen family.

Director Liza Mandelup, who studied in SVA’s MFA Photography, Video and Related Media program, returns to Sundance with Luigi, a documentary short that tracks the fevered online obsession that blooms after Luigi Mangione is charged with murder—unspooling through letters, fantasies, conspiracies, and more.

Lastly, documentary filmmaker Bao Nguyen (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) is part of this year’s festival as a juror in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, helping select the awards that will be announced during Sundance’s January 2026 run.

The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs through Sunday, February 1, with tickets available at festival.sundance.org. Several free talks are also available to the public.