As ever, anticipation for the 2025 elite festival season begins in December, with the Sundance Film Festival announcing its full line-up yesterday (and the Berlinale and IFFR drip-feeding us titles from theirs). Unspooling from 23 January-2 February next year, it will be the legendary US independent film event’s penultimate year in its customary location of Park City, Utah, with Boulder, Colorado; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Salt Lake City, Utah bartering to host the gathering from 2027. A short window taking place from 30 January-2 February will see the competition titles, and a handful from other sections, available for online viewing to the public and industry.

Further confirmations will abound as we learn more about the line-up, but for now, the festival has listed 25 European-backed world premieres across its various sections, with European helmers and co-productions from international directors equally well represented. Being an event centred around discovery and fresh voices, few have immediate name recognition, yet the festival has proved time and again to be an ideal launchpad for European work that travels well, competes for awards, and finds audiences across and beyond the festival circuit.

Perhaps the most pedigreed European co-pro in the line-up is Peter Hujar’s Day from Ira Sachs, who brought more sex appeal and pizzaz into his work with 2023’s Passages [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film]. The 75-minute biographical drama takes place in December 1974 in New York City, and tracks a meeting between legendary photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall), with Sachs calling it “a film about what it is to be an artist among artists in a city where no one was making any money”.

Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov follows up his Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Mstyslav Chernov
fiche film] with the relatedly titled 2000 Meters to Andriivka, once again playing in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. The new film takes place during a failing counteroffensive in the Russia-Ukraine War and focuses on a Ukrainian platoon’s mission to liberate a strategic village from occupation. They need to traverse “one mile of heavily fortified forest, but the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realise that this war may never end”.

Close and sensitive looks at trans issues are an emerging theme in the selection, highlighted by Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa, which sees a mother played by Olivia Colman take her non-binary teenager to visit her gay grandfather (John Lithgow) in Amsterdam; assurances Colman’s character has about the family and parenting are challenged. Danish director Mathias Broe’s competition title Sauna sees a comfortably out gay man begin a relationship with a transgender man, defying further societal norms around queer relationships. 

Festival director Eugene Hernandez described the programme as “ready to meet our audiences, the industry and the wider culture in a moment of many global questions. The works our artists debut at our upcoming festival will spark conversation and invite connection.” This was echoed by Kim Yutani, director of programming, who said: “It presents stories that confront many critical issues of our time, encouraging us to look both inward and outward.”

Here are the European productions included in the festival’s announcement:

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Sauna - Mathias Broe (Denmark)
The Virgin of Quarry Lake - Laura Casabé (Argentina/Spain/Mexico)
Sukkwan Island - Vladimir de Fontenay (France)
Brides - Nadia Fall (UK)
Where the Wind Comes From - Amel Guellaty (Tunisia/France/Qatar)
The Things You Kill - Alireza Khatami (Turkey/France/Poland/Canada)
Cactus Pears - Rohan Parashuram Kanawade (India/UK/Canada)
DJ Ahmet - Georgi M Unkovski (North Macedonia/Czech Republic/Serbia/Croatia)

World Cinema Documentary Competition

Mr. Nobody Against Putin - David Borenstein (Denmark/Czech Republic)
2000 Meters to Adriivka - Mstyslav Chernov (Ukraine)
The Dating Game - Violet Du Feng (USA/UK/Norway)
Coexistence, My Ass! - Amber Fares (USA/France)
Cutting Through Rocks - Sara Khaki (Iran/Germany/USA/Netherlands/Qatar/Chile/Canada)
GEN_ - Gianluca Matarrese (France/Italy/Switzerland)
Khartoum - Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Phil Cox (Sudan/UK/Germany/Qatar)

NEXT

Rains Over Babel - Gala del Sol (Colombia/USA/Spain)
Zodiac Killer Project - Charlie Shackleton (USA/UK)

Premieres

All That’s Left of You - Cherien Dabis (Germany/Cyprus/Palestine)
FOLKTALES - Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady (USA/Norway)
The Ballad of Wallis Island - James Griffiths (UK)
Jimpa - Sophie Hyde (Australia/Netherlands/Finland)
Peter Hujar’s Day - Ira Sachs (USA/Germany/UK/Spain)
The Thing with Feathers - Dylan Southern (UK)

Midnight

The Ugly Stepsister - Emilie Blichfeldt (Norway)
Rabbit Trap - Bryn Chainey (UK)