One of the leading US festivals for independent films, the Sundance Film Festival, is bracing for a homecoming from 19-29 January. The gathering’s 2023 edition is the first one to take place in person (in Park City, Salt Lake City and the Sundance Resort) since 2020, after last year’s edition had to be cancelled shortly before it was due to begin (see the news). However, the festival is maintaining its online platform, screening the movies both in theatres and online in a hybrid, “phygital” model that many festivals embraced last year. This coming iteration is led by Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente alongside director of programming Kim Yutani and the institute’s leadership team after Sundance director Tabitha Jackson announced her departure in June. New Sundance Film Festival director and head of public programming Eugene Hernandez is set to helm the 40^th edition in 2024.

“Maintaining an essential place for artists to express themselves and to take risks, and for visionary stories to endure and entertain is distinctly Sundance,” says Robert Redford, the Sundance Institute’s founder and president. “The programme for this year’s festival reiterates the relevance of trailblazing work serving as an irreplaceable source of original stories that resonate and fuel creativity and dialogue,” notes Yutani. “In so many ways, this year’s slate reflects the voices of communities around the world who are speaking out with urgency and finally being heard. Across our programme, impactful storytelling by fearless artists continues to provide space for the community to come together to be entertained, challenged and inspired,” she adds.

Similarly to previous editions, the festival will premiere a rich variety of European fiction and non-fiction oeuvres. The United Kingdom and France are leading the way in terms of the number of co-productions selected for the line-up. Ira Sachs’ latest work, Passages [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], is among the hottest titles, and will screen in the Premieres section, which showcases highly anticipated movies. Led by a stellar cast comprising Adèle Exarchopoulos, Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw, the French romantic drama focuses on an intimate examination of attraction and emotional abuse between men and women. Also bowing in Premieres is the French co-production Cat Person [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], directed by Susanna Fogel, the big-screen adaptation of the viral The New Yorker story by Kristen Roupenian. Premieres will also introduce Sophie Barthes' sci-fi flick The Pod Generation [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], starring Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor, about a brave new world where pregnancies can be shared via detachable, artificial wombs.

More new voices from British cinema will be bowing at Sundance alongside Barthes. Raine Allen Miller will introduce her romantic comedy Rye Lane [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ruben Östlund
intervista: Ruben Östlund
scheda film] fame; and the story of 11-year-old Ama and her mother, who “take solace in the gentle but isolated world they obsessively create”, in Girl [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Adura Onashile
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The non-fiction line-up includes the documentaries on Ukraine 20 Days in Mariupol [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mstyslav Chernov
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intervista: Roman Liubyi
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intervista: Anna Hints
scheda film], and British filmmaker Ella Glendining will be unveiling her feature-length documentary debut, Is There Anybody Out There? [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], where she searches for someone with the same disability as her – bilateral proximal femoral focal deficiency.

World premieres constitute the vast majority of the announced films that the festival programmers have picked from among 1,662 US and 2,399 international feature-length submissions. 53% of the announced films were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as women, 45% were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as people of colour, 20% by one or more filmmakers who identify as LGBTQ+, and 3% by one or more filmmakers who identify as a person with a disability.

Here is the full list of announced titles:

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Animalia [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Sofia Alaoui
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Girl [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Adura Onashile
scheda film] - Adura Onashile (UK)
Heroic [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - David Zonana (Mexico/Sweden)
Mamacruz [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Patricia Ortega (Spain)
La Pecera [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Glorimar Marrero Sánchez (Puerto Rico/Spain)
Scrapper [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Charlotte Regan (UK)
Slow [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Marija Kavtaradze
scheda film] - Marija Kavtaradze (Lithuania/Spain/Sweden)
Sorcery [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Christopher Murray (Chile/Mexico/Germany)
When It Melts [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Veerle Baetens
scheda film] - Veerle Baetens (Belgium)

World Cinema Documentary Competition

5 Seasons of Revolution [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lina
scheda film] – Lina (Germany/Syria/Netherlands/Norway)
20 Days in Mariupol [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mstyslav Chernov
scheda film] - Mstyslav Chernov (Ukraine)
And the king said, what a FANTASTIC MACHINE [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Axel Danielson, Maximilien…
scheda film] - Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck (Sweden/Denmark)
Iron Butterflies [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Roman Liubyi
scheda film] - Roman Liubyi (Ukraine/Germany)
Is There Anybody Out There? [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Ella Glendining (UK)
Pianoforte [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Jakub Piątek (Poland)
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Anna Hints
scheda film] - Anna Hints (Estonia/France/Iceland)
Twice Colonized [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lin Alluna
intervista: Lin Alluna
scheda film] - Lin Alluna (Greenland/Denmark/Canada)

Midnight

Polite Society [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Nida Manzoor
scheda film] - Nida Manzoor (UK)
Infinity Pool [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Brandon Cronenberg (Canada/Hungary/Croatia/France)

Premieres

Cat Person [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Susanna Fogel (France/USA)
The Deepest Breath [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Laura McGann (UK/Ireland)
Drift [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Anthony Chen (France/UK/Greece)
Passages [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Ira Sachs (France)
The Pod Generation [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Sophie Barthes (Belgium/France/UK)
Rye Lane [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Raine Allen-Miller (UK)

Spotlight

The Eight Mountains [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Felix van Groeningen & Cha…
scheda film] - Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch (Italy/Belgium)
L’Immensità [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Emanuele Crialese
scheda film] - Emanuele Crialese (Italy)
Other People’s Children [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Rebecca Zlotowski
scheda film] - Rebecca Zlotowski (France)

Kids

The Amazing Maurice [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Toby Genkel (Germany/UK)