Basil Tsiokos is a Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on nonfiction features. He was most recently with DOC NYC for nearly a decade, where he served as Director of Programming since 2014, and with the Nantucket Film Festival as its Film Program Director. Prior to those positions, Basil was the longtime Artistic and Executive Director of NewFest. He has been affiliated with Sundance since 2005 as a Programming Associate. Basil serves on the feature nominating committees for the International Documentary Association Awards and Cinema Eye Honors. He has written about documentaries daily since 2010 on what (not) to doc. Basil holds a Masters degree from New York University and two undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.
BEING (THE DIGITAL GRIOT) In this innovative participatory experience, Being, an artificial intelligence digital griot, asks the audience to engage in unifying and challenging discussions. It features a soundscape and movement informed by a dataset from Black communities, theorists, poets, and activists, including bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Dazié Grego-Sykes, and Cornel West.
Lead Artist: Rashaad Newsome
Producer: Johnny Symons
Festival Section: New Frontier
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Wolfgang Held
WAR GAME A bipartisan group of US defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations participate in an unscripted role-play exercise in which they confront a political coup backed by rogue members of the US military, in the wake of a contested presidential election.
Director/Producer: Jesse Moss
Director: Tony Gerber
Producers: Todd Lubin, Jack Turner, Mark DiCristofaro, Jessica Grimshaw, Nick Shumaker
Festival Section: Special Screenings
More Info: This is the second of two films from Moss in this year’s Festival, following GIRLS STATE; his previous Sundance films were BOYS STATE and THE OVERNIGHTERS. Gerber is also an alumni with the doc feature THE NOTORIOUS MR BOUT, as well as the fiction feature SIDE STREETS and fiction short SMALL TASTE OF HEAVEN.
Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP In 1985, 46 music icons, including Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, came together for the most star-studded recording session in history. This is the untold story of the legendary global pop song “We Are the World” — which very nearly didn’t happen.
Director: Bao Nguyen
Producers: Julia Nottingham, Lionel Richie, Bruce Eskowitz, Larry Klein, Harriet Sternberg, George Hencken
Festival Section: Special Screenings
More Info: Nguyen was previously at Sundance with BE WATER.
Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Insightfilms
THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES On a handmade set re-creating her Casablanca neighborhood, a young Moroccan filmmaker enlists family and friends to help unearth the troubling lies built into her childhood.
Director/Producer: Asmae El Moudir
Festival Section: Spotlight
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Bruce Levine
THE SYNANON FIX Exploring the rise and fall of the Synanon organization — through the eyes of the members who lived it — from its early days as a groundbreaking drug rehabilitation program to its later descent into what many consider a cult.
Director/Producer: Rory Kennedy
Executive Producers: Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Tina Nguyen
Producers: Mark Bailey, Alexandra Korba, Keven Mcalester
Festival Section: Episodic
More Info: Kennedy has brought six of her previous documentary features to the Festival, including AMERICAN HOLLOW, DOWNFALL: THE CASE AGAINST BOEING, and the Oscar-nominated LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM, as well as her doc short THE FENCE.
Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
LOLLA: THE STORY OF LOLLAPALOOZA In the summer of ’91, the Lollapalooza music festival was born. What started as a farewell tour for the band Jane’s Addiction rose from the underground to launch a cultural movement and change music forever.
Director/Producer: Michael John Warren
Producers: James Lee Hernandez, Brian Lazarte, Brian Levy, Mat Whittington, Daniel Gibbs, Bruce Gillmer, Amanda Culkowski, Perry Farrell, Charlie Walker, Charles Attal, Berkeley Reinhold
Festival Section: Episodic
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
GOD SAVE TEXAS: THE PRICE OF OIL Three directors offer their unique and personal perspectives on their home state of Texas, creating vivid portraits of a state that mirrors the United States’ past, present, and future. Inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.
As the world’s energy capital, Houston is a city that manufactures both its prominence and demise. Alex Stapleton explores the industry’s impact on her family, who arrived as enslaved people in the 1830s, built thriving communities, and now must cope with the human costs of Texas’ biggest money-maker.
Director: Alex Stapleton
Executive Producers: Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, Richard Linklater, Peter Berg, Michael Lombardo, Elizabeth Rogers, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller
GOD SAVE TEXAS: LA FRONTERA Three directors offer their unique and personal perspectives on their home state of Texas, creating vivid portraits of a state that mirrors the United States’ past, present, and future. Inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.
Iliana Sosa examines how “nepantla,” an embrace of in-betweenness, characterizes relations to both her Mexican heritage and her hometown of El Paso, Texas. An exploration revealing how the city’s humanity and unique hybridity catalyzed unity, nurturing healing in the aftermath of a devastating mass shooting in 2019.
Director: Iliana Sosa
Executive Producers: Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, Richard Linklater, Peter Berg, Michael Lombardo, Richard Perello, Stacey Offman, Elizabeth Rogers, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller
Producer: Danielle Mynard
Festival Section: Episodic
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
GOD SAVE TEXAS: HOMETOWN PRISON Three directors offer their unique and personal perspectives on their home state of Texas, creating vivid portraits of a state that mirrors the United States’ past, present, and future. Inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.
Huntsville, Texas sits at the heart of an expansive prison industrial complex. Yet, for many residents, these prisons exist in another realm, disconnected from their lives. Richard Linklater revisits his hometown to explore its diverse inhabitants, painting a vibrant portrait that encapsulates the criminal justice system of Texas.
Director/Executive Producer: Richard Linklater
Executive Producers: Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, Peter Berg, Michael Lombardo, Elizabeth Rogers, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller
Producer: Nell Constantinople
Festival Section: Episodic
More Info: Linklater has brought seven of his fiction features to Sundance before – including SLACKER, BEFORE SUNRISE, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, and BOYHOOD – as well as the doc short LIVE FROM SHIVA’S DANCE FLOOR. His most recent fiction film, HIT MAN, also screens in this year’s lineup, as part of the Spotlight section.
Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
CONBODY VS EVERYBODY Over eight years, Coss Marte builds ConBody, a gym inspired by workouts he developed while in prison. Committed to employing trainers who were formerly incarcerated, Coss creates a community fighting to break the cycle of recidivism while navigating society’s many obstacles to reentry.
Director/Executive Producer: Debra Granik
Executive Producers: Anne Rosellini, Victoria Stewart, Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Joslyn Barnes, Jonathan Scheuer
Festival Section: Episodic
More Info: Granik’s three previous fiction features – DOWN TO THE BONE, WINTER’S BONE, and LEAVE NO TRACE – have debuted at Sundance, but this marks her first nonfiction work at the Festival.
Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
what (not) to doc 