Sundance 2025: Previewing documentaries, narratives, short film programs on The Utah Review’s coverage slate

EDITOR’S NOTE: Part II summarizes the films and programs from Sundance 2025 that are part of The Utah Review coverage. For Part I which is an overview of the state of the film industry in Utah, see here.

Among the Sundance feature-length films with a significant Utah connection is Omaha, a drama filmed in Utah about a father who takes his two children on a cross-country trip, after a family tragedy. Marking Cole Webley’s feature-length debut as director, the film was written by Robert Machoian, who wrote and directed The Killing of Two Lovers, which premiered at Sundance in 2020. Incidentally, not a project filmed in Utah, Machoian also has one of 57 short films selected for Sundance this year: The Long Valley, chronicling the Hispanic migrant community and landscapes of the Salinas Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in California. 

In addition to the following feature-length films, The Utah Review also will cover several programs representing the 57 short films that are on this year’s Sundance slate. These include the short film programs for animation and documentary.

Saleh Bakri and Cherien Dabis appear in All That’s Left of You (اللي باقي منك) by Cherien Dabis, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

FILMS CONNECTED TO IMPACT PARTNERS & UTAH FILM CENTER FISCAL SPONSORSHIP

Five documentaries on this year’s Sundance slate received Utah fiscal center sponsorship. From the Arctic Circle in Norway, FOLKTALES, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, has similarly breathtaking cinematic photography as last year’s Sundance entry Gaucho Gaucho, which also received a fiscal sponsorship. The Norwegian film chronicles the experiences of teens at a folk high school in self reliance, where they must count on each other and a pack of sled dogs for surviving in the Arctic wilderness. Mariah Mellus, the Utah Film Center’s executive director, explained that a project such as Folktales dovetails with the type of educational programming the center offers, which encourages young people with stories about finding the balance in activities without relying exclusively on our phone or computer screens. Dreyfous described the small Norwegian school in Folktales as “Upward Bound meets Montessori.” She added, “it is gloriously beautiful for reminding us of how little time and space we have to turn off the machines we use in our lives and allow us to daydream and be connected to nature.” 

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, directed by Elegance Bratton and produced by Chester Algernal Gordon, is anticipated to be an exceptional documentary of music history, going back five decades when the birth of house music occurred in underground dance clubs on Chicago’s south side, before it became one of the most durable forms of contemporary social music on the planet. 

Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley appear in Come See Me in the Good Light by Ryan White, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brandon Somerhalder.

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, directed by Elegance Bratton) springs from one of the most infamous promotional events to take place at a Major League Baseball game. On July 12, 1979, when the Chicago White Sox played the Detroit Tigers, the stadium hosted a Disco Demolition Night, sparked by a Chicago rock music radio DJ who was known for mocking disco music. Fans could purchase game tickets at just 98 cents if they brought a disco record, which would join others in being blown up at centerfield in between the twilight doubleheader. However, the promotional stunt ended in a riot so violent that the White Sox had to forfeit the second game. As noted in a post by the Chicago History Museum, Nile Rodgers, cofounder of the disco band Chic, said that in looking at the footage the next day, “it felt to us like a Nazi book burning.” Indeed, the event stunned many, given that disco had met with backlash, often from white, heterosexual, male rock-music listeners.

Also on the slate is the story of Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel to space, SALLY, directed by Cristina Costantini. In 2018, Costantini’s Science Fair documentary premiered at Sundance and in 2020, Mucho Mucho Amor, about television psychic Walter Mercado, had its debut in Park City. In the latest film, she ties together two threads of Ride’s time in the American space program, including the romance with her partner, which she kept secret as she pursued breaking the barrier as the first female astronaut for NASA. Costantini incorporates archival footage documenting her training and missions along with the media attention she received. Ride died in 2012 but the film also features her life partner Tam O’Shaughnessy who rounds out the portrait of Ride’s legacy and impact in science. 

A still from The Librarians by Kim A. Snyder, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Amy Bench.

Kim Snyder, whose 2020 documentary Us Kids which premiered at Sundance in 2020 and received a Utah Film Center fiscal sponsorship, returns this year to the festival with The Librarians, also a fiscal sponsorship recipient. Positioning librarians as the frontline defenders of intellectual freedom against censorship and book banning, the film examines the surge of book banning in libraries across the nation, some of which has been supported by state legislation, as well as a corresponding increase in threats and harassment targeting librarians. “This film represents a dream of ours to show to educators, parents, students and local librarians,” Mellus said, which will be possible in the center’s new black box movie theater. Subject Matter, an organization that provides funds for documentary films dealing with urgent social issues, announced a $25,000 grant for The Librarians. Subject Matter will add $100 to all audience donations to the PEN America librarian initiative made during the Sundance Film Festival, up to $5,000. PEN documents the rise of book bans and educational gag orders and the organization has documented more than 15,000 instances of book bans since 2021, a level of censorship not seen since the Red Scare period of the 1950s. 

Directed by Shoshannah Stern, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, in the U.S. Documentary Competition slate, highlights the story of the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award (in 1987) and become the center of national attention at the age of 21. The production team entirely comprises deaf professionals, which Dreyfous said gives an interesting and provocative view of  a world where American Sign Language is the primary platform for all forms of expression.   

Set in Nairobi, How to Build a Library, directed by Maia Lekow and Christopher King,  follows the efforts of two women seeking to revamp a cultural vestige of British colonialism — a main library that has fallen into disrepair along with two suburban branches that were limited to white patrons during colonial rule. The film covers and weaves together themes not only about what elements of colonial history should be preserved but about independent representation in culture and literature, the reclaiming of identity and the confounding politics of bureaucracy and shadows of governmental corruption.  

Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka appear in How to Build a Library by Maia Lekow and Christopher King, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. | photo by Christopher King

All That’s Left of You (اللي باقي منك), is the Palestinian version of a multigenerational family saga. This is filmmaker Cherien Dabis’s third feature at Sundance, and the story covers 75 years, propelled by a script of fictional characters that are situated in the historical facts of the period. Dabis also plays a central character in the film. “It’s a really important film that emphasizes how attempts to erase existence and roots of a people have profound personal impacts,” Dreyfous noted, adding that the while the tone is restrained on the surface, its intimate nature does not stifle the inner rage one feels about the persistent efforts to erase people totally from a landscape that represents their history.   

Come See Me in the Good Light, directed and produced by Ryan White, a Sundance alumnus filmmaker, centers around Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s poet laureate who has incurable cancer and her partner, poet Megan Falley).The title refers to a poem written by Gibson, which includes the following verses, “In the good light, and in the lightning strike,/come become beside me/till I find your first silver hair in our tub./Till I find your last silver hair in our tub.“ This is White’s second Sundance film with the film center’s fiscal sponsorship: the other two were Assassins in 2020. This is White’s fourth film at Sundance since 2014.

Olivia Taylor Dudley appears in Touch Me by Addison Heimann, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Dustin Supencheck.

OTHER SUNDANCE FEATURE FILMS

Directed by Violet Du Feng, The Dating Game arises from a week-long dating camp in China where eligible men are coached to find romance and love. In China, it is estimated that eligible men outnumber women in the tens of millions. The film follows Zhou, Li, and Wu, three bachelors participating in a camp, led by Hao, one of China’s most sought-after dating coaches. As the synopsis indicates, “In their last-ditch effort to find love, the bachelors chuckle and bond as Hao makes them over, altering how they look and act online—and in real life. It’s all part of Hao’s signature ’strategic deception,’ a series of techniques designed to, purportedly, make humans connect. Hao’s credentials? Hao successfully wooed Wen, a stylish, educated city-girl—a real catch who is now his wife.”

Sky Yang appears in Last Days by Justin Lin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Tanasak “Top” Boonlam.

Directed by Justin Lin, Last Days is a narrative based on the biography of John Chau, who was killed in 2018 at the age of 26, when the American evangelical Christian missionary had attempted to introduce religion to the Sentinelese, a tribe in voluntary isolation.  Chau had illegally traveled to North Sentinel Island. Lin, a Sundance alumnus, is well known for directing five films in the Fast & Furious franchise, returns to themes evoking his Sundance debut of 2002 when he directed Better Luck Tomorrow about an Asian-American man trying to reconcile his ambitions with social and family pressures. Lin has helmed many large-scale film and TV projects, including Star Trek Beyond, and several broadcast series.

From Sundance’s Midnight program, Touch Me, written and directed by Addison Heimann, will stand out for its hat tip to retro Japanese cinema in its artistic positioning as a psychosexual horror and dark comedy narrative. The story revolves around two best friends who also are roommates and both are attracted to a mysterious alien being whose unconcealed narcissism makes one wonder what is behind his real motivation to be on Earth. It promises to fit the Sundance Midnight program creative brief. Heimann, a queer genre filmmaker living  in Los Angeles, had his first feature, Hypochondriac, premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival, which later was picked up for distribution by XYZ Films. like Hypochondriac, Touch Me explores mental health issues, extending to codependency as well as narcissism.

Frame by Frame 

While a lion’s share of programming and events will take place in Park City, there will be events in Salt Lake City, in addition to screenings in downtown SLC. Presented in conjunction with The Blocks Arts  District, Frame by Frame will take place Feb. 1, 6-10 p.m., at  223 Floral St.  A free event open to all ages, Frame by Frame will feature music by Sasha Marie, Enzo, Social Antidote and Gato, along with art installations by Sister.SLC and live screen printing by Copper Palate Press

For more information, see The Blocks website.

As for Sundance tickets and more information, see the Sundance website

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