The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled this year’s line-up of artist conversations, filmmaker panels and audience discussions, with speakers set to include Barry Jenkins, Dakota Johnson, Jonathan Majors, Randall Park and Marlee Matlin.
The festival’s Beyond Film programme comprises three series – Power of Story, Cinema Cafe and The Big Conversation – and will take place in person from January 19-23, with sessions becoming available online starting on January 24.
This year’s Power of Story strand includes a session on intimacy with speakers including actress and producer Johnson, producer Jenkins (whose All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is screening in the festival’s US Dramatic Competition section) and author Lisa Taddeo.
Speakers in sessions from the Cinema Cafe strand will include filmmakers Alison O’Daniel, D Smith and Walé Oyéjidé, whose respective films The Tuba Thieves, Kokomo City and Bravo and Burkina! are all screening in the festival’s Next section.
The Big Conversation strand will include a session on representation, with Park (director of US Dramatic Competition entry Shortcomings) and Matlin (from festival encore special screening title CODA) among the speakers, and another on burnout and attention crisis, with speakers including Majors, star of US Dramatic Competition entry Magazine Dreams.
The festival’s Sundance Collab digital platform for connecting independent filmmakers will offer sessions on making a first feature film and sustaining a career.
And the festival’s partner programming will take in subjects including getting into Sundance and racism and the new age of censorship.
Beyond Film programme curator Ania Trzebiatowska commented: “We gather in Utah and online during the festival to watch stories unfold. From feature films to shorts to indie episodic projects, Sundance is known for what audiences can see, but just as crucial to the experience is what we all talk about. The Beyond Film offerings encourage community. These talks allow festivalgoers the opportunity to engage in a deeper way with the cultural ideas that they’ve seen on screen with artists, activists and thinkers that are also exploring them.”
Full details of this year’s Beyond Film programme can be found here.
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