Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Gabriela Osio Vanden
NUISANCE BEAR A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.
Directors: Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman
Producers: Michael Code, Will N Miller, Teddy Leifer
Festival Section: US Documentary Competition
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
THE LAKE An environmental nuclear bomb looms in Utah. Two intrepid scientists and a political insider race the clock to save their home from unprecedented catastrophe.
Director: Abby Ellis
Producers: Fletcher Keyes, Abby Ellis
Festival Section: US Documentary Competition
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
JOYBUBBLES Joybubbles discovers he can manipulate the telephone system by whistling a magic tone. Born blind and yearning for connection, his early obsession unwittingly lays the groundwork for a subculture that shapes the future of hacking and technology.
Director: Rachael J Morrison
Producer: Sarah Winshall
Festival Section: US Documentary Competition
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute and The Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge
AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ Against political resistance and industry skepticism, Luis Valdez pushes Chicano storytelling from the fields to the film screen with Zoot Suit and La Bamba, crafting iconic works that challenge, celebrate, and expand America’s story.
Director: David Alvarado
Producers: David Alvarado, Lauren DeFilippo, Everett Katigbak, Amanda Pollak
Festival Section: US Documentary Competition
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 Ibrahim Al Otla
AMERICAN DOCTOR When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.
Director: Poh Si Teng
Producers: Poh Si Teng, Kirstine Barfod, Reem Haddad
Festival Section: US Documentary Competition
More Info: Check out the Sundance website for more details, including screening info, by clicking on the film title above.
The 42nd edition of the Sundance Film Festival will run January 22-February 1 in-person in Utah, with a selection of titles also available online January 29-February 1. Our announced lineup consists of 90 features, 7 episodic projects, and 54 shorts.
As I’ve done for several years, I’ll highlight each of our feature and long-form episodic docs in this space with a simple pointer post in the lead up to the Festival. Sundance Don’t Miss Docs begins this coming Monday.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Merri Cyr
Director: Amy Berg
About: Rising musician Jeff Buckley had only released one album when he died suddenly in 1997. Now, never-before-seen footage, exclusive voice messages, and accounts from those closest to him offer a portrait of the captivating singer.
About: Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes — the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle — a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin
Director: David Borenstein
Co-Director: Pavel Talankin
About: As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Merri Cyr
Director: Amy Berg
About: Rising musician Jeff Buckley had only released one album when he died suddenly in 1997. Now, never-before-seen footage, exclusive voice messages, and accounts from those closest to him offer a portrait of the captivating singer.
About: Exploring the complex bond between two half brothers — one Indigenous, one white — traveling from the present in isolated Shamattawa to bustling 1980s Toronto.
About: TO CATCH A PREDATOR was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. An exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show and the world it helped create.
About: Exploring the complex bond between two half brothers — one Indigenous, one white — traveling from the present in isolated Shamattawa to bustling 1980s Toronto.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Los Angeles Times
Director: Reid Davenport
About: In 1983, a disabled Californian woman named Elizabeth Bouvia sought the “right to die,” igniting a national debate about autonomy, dignity, and the value of disabled lives. After years of courtroom trials, Bouvia disappeared from public view. Disabled director Reid Davenport narrates this investigation of what happened to Bouvia.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brandon Somerhalder
Director: Ryan White
About: Two poets, one incurable cancer diagnosis. Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley go on an unexpectedly funny and poignant journey through love, life, and mortality.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Ben Ross Photography
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Co-Director: Sam Rice-Edwards
About: An exploration of the seminal and transformative 18 months that one of music’s most famous couples — John Lennon and Yoko Ono — spent living in Greenwich Village, New York City, in the early 1970s.
About: Selena Quintanilla — the “Queen of Tejano Music” — and her family band, Selena y Los Dinos, rose from performing at quinceañeras to selling out stadium tours. The celebration of her life and legacy is chronicled through never-before-seen footage from the family’s personal archive.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Mohammad Reza Eyni
Directors: Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni
About: As the first elected councilwoman of her Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi aims to break long-held patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages. When accusations arise questioning Sara’s intentions to empower the girls, her identity is put in turmoil.
About: Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes — the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle — a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point.
About: A two-year investigation uncovers a scandal behind the making of one of the most-recognized photographs of the 20th century. Five decades of secrets are unraveled in the search for justice for a man known only as “the stringer.”
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Mstyslav Chernov
Director: Mstyslav Chernov
About: Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
About: Inspired by an unconventional teacher, a group of teenagers in upstate New York in the early 1990s made a student film that uncovered a vast conspiracy involving toxic waste that was poisoning their community. Thirty years later, they revisit their film and confront the legacy of this transformative experience.
About: A two-year investigation uncovers a scandal behind the making of one of the most-recognized photographs of the 20th century. Five decades of secrets are unraveled in the search for justice for a man known only as “the stringer.”
About: Preeminent West African curator and scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu’s magnum opus, The Resonance Field, leads her to the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, drawing a journalist into a journey that shatters her understanding of consciousness and time. (Hybrid)
what (not) to doc 