In 1989, a then nascent Sundance Film Festival introduced Steven Soderbergh to cinephiles with an earthquake of a debut, Sex, Lies, and Videotape. He’s one of dozens of iconic directors who got their start in Park City—and one of a handful making their return to Utah this January for the festival’s milestone 40th edition, whose lineup was released on Tuesday. The Oscar winner is returning with, naturally, a secret movie that hadn’t been formally announced until now, the ghost story Presence, starring Lucy Liu and Julia Fox. “It’s a really terrific film,” festival director Eugene Hernandez teases to Vanity Fair. “It resonated immediately with our whole team and it’s such a fun film to discuss.”
This marks Hernandez’s first year with Sundance, after spending more than a decade with the New York Film Festival. He and the team waded through more than 17,000 submissions, a record number, and are making their mark with a landmark year at a pivotal turning point in the industry, with the festival-sales climate quieting and the future of specialty theatrical releases in flux. They’ve also scaled back digital offerings that were pioneered in the aftermath of COVID while still cementing their presence. As for honoring Sundance’s 40 years, Soderbergh will be joined by fellow noted alums Richard Linklater, Lana Wilson, Dawn Porter, and more in showcasing new work.
Going forward, Hernandez is bringing a clear perspective to his—and Sundance’s—role as a major meeting ground for global independent film. “It’s an opportunity for us to shine a light and to turn the spotlight on those artists, those filmmakers that we’ve selected from that huge number of submissions,” he says. “In talking with the industry the last number of days, they are ready to dig in, to find new films, to discover new artists. Agents are looking for clients to represent. The industry is coming back after these strikes, so there’s a hunger, and I’m hearing it from all sectors—to reengage and to really show up at Sundance.”
The talent pool will be significant—perhaps, above all, on the producing side. In the Premieres section, Margot Robbie, fresh off of big behind-the-scenes successes with Barbie and Saltburn, backs My Old Ass, a psychedelic coming-of-age story starring Maisy Stella, while Jesse Eisenberg both produces and stars in Sasquatch Sunset, a Bleecker Street release also starring Riley Keough whose plot is being kept under wraps. (Eisenberg will play double duty in Park City this year, as his next movie as a director, Real Pain, will screen in the US dramatic-competition section.) There’s also Will & Harper, a fascinating documentary that Will Ferrell produces about a road trip he takes with his friend of more than 30 years, Harper Steele, after she comes out as a trans woman. “It is a personal film for Will…and not only an emotional ride for both Will and Harper, but I think for an audience,” says director of programming Kim Yutani. “We were deeply moved by this film.”
In the form-bending Next section, Darren Aronofsky backs Little Death, a twisty portrait of a filmmaker played by David Schwimmer, while over in Midnights, Emma Stone produces I Saw the TV Glow, an inventive supernatural film taking place in the world of late-night TV and starring Justice Smith. It’s an A24 release, and the indie studio has another buzzy title back in the Premieres section, the wild Sebastian Stan vehicle A Different Man; other major specialty studios like Searchlight Pictures and Focus Features are also represented here—despite the Sundance program comprising roughly 80% acquisition titles. “How do we help launch a film that a studio has taken a chance on with a first-time filmmaker, and how do we help those films get seen by larger audiences?” Yutani says of the thinking there, before highlighting Searchlight’s Suncoast starring Woody Harrelson and Laura Linney. “That’s an incredibly personal film for the filmmaker, Laura Chinn.” The team is also high on Focus’s The American Society of Magical Negroes, a debut from Sundance Labs alum Kobi Libii. “It’s going to play really, really well,” Hernandez teases.
Last year’s Sundance fielded commercial and critical successes like Past Lives, Passages, and The Eternal Memory. Discovery is what the festival has always been and remains about, going back to Soderbergh’s splashy debut and even before that. Yutani and Hernandez highlight a few competition debuts, including Sean Wang’s Dìdi, Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples, and Titus Kaphar’s Exhibiting Forgiveness—the latter featuring “great performances,” Hernandez says, from a cast led by André Holland—but emphasize there’s much to find here. Still, it doesn’t hurt that top Oscar-nominated talent including Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun (Love Me), Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun), Michael Fassbender (Kneecap), and Chiwetel Ejiofor (directing Rob Peace) are among the faces starring in this year’s program.