This Is Your First Look at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Program

Are you ready for it? Today we're coming at you full blast with the complete lineup of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival program. All eyes will be on independents when we gather in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, and online in January to celebrate the next generation of bold filmmakers and artists.

On this first Friday of the new year we're psyched to announce the addition of The Greatest Night in Pop - a documentary about the whirlwind creation of global mega-hit We Are the World - to our Special Screenings program. The premiere will also feature an extended conversation with Lionel Ritchie (producer/subject), Bao Nguyen (director), and Julia Nottingham (producer).

Lively conversations and passionate discussions will be present throughout the full festival with our newly revealed Beyond Film lineup. Our Beyond Film programming is a crucial and inspiring part of the Sundance Film Festival experience, says Ania Trzebiatowska, the Fest's Beyond Film Program Curator. Especially this year, as we celebrate our 40th edition, these events enable audiences to go beyond the screens - whether you're watching in theaters here in person, or online from home - to meaningfully connect with artists and their stories. It's during these intimate conversations that audiences can discover themes across our Festival Program and hear from artists themselves about the vitality of independent storytelling, the interwovenness of art, science, and culture, and so much more.

2024 Festival artists and storytellers will be engaging in Beyond Film talks and events - Power of Story, Cinema Caf presented by Audible, and The Big Conversation - including Steven Soderbergh (Director, Presence), Jesse Eisenberg (Writer-Director and Actor, A Real Pain), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Writer-Director and Actor, Rob Peace), Sue Bird (Subject, Sue Bird: In The Clutch), Dee Rees (Writer-Director, Pariah), Lucy Lawless (Director, Never Look Away), Andr Holland (Actor, Exhibiting Forgiveness), Debra Granik (Director, Conbody VS Everybody), Jay Ellis (Actor, Freaky Tales), and Nzingha Stewart (Director, Me/We), Rashaad Newsome (Lead Artist, Being (the Digital Griot)) and New Frontier alumni, including Navid Khonsari (Block Party, Hero, Revolution 1979), Ari Melenciano (Computational Anthropology), and Sandra Rodriguez (CHOM5KY vs. CHOMSKY).

With the upcoming Festival marking the 40th edition, acclaimed artist alumni will return for the occasion. As previously announced, a talk titled Power of Story: Four Decades of Taking Chances about the legacy of independent storytelling will feature Miguel Arteta, Richard Linklater, Dawn Porter, and Christine Vachon. Additionally, audiences can test their Sundance Film Festival knowledge at Sundance Trivia: The 40th Edition.

Last month we unveiled the 53 short films that will screen at the Festival. Selecting the shorts for the Festival Program every year is an exercise in taking the pulse of film culture, and the outlook is always bright, says Mike Plante, Senior Programmer, Short Film, when asked about the eight curated collections of the Short Film Program this year. In our 40th year, the world of short films is more vibrant than ever. With so many ways to see and experience shorts now - at festivals and online through varied platforms - so many artists are coming to the art form and creating shorts that excite us, and short film fans, in new ways.

On top of the final slate for the new work screening at the Festival next month, we're psyched to be able to dive into our deep history and announce our very special 40th Edition Celebration Screenings and Events. Join our alums back on the mountain for special events and debut screenings of brand-new 4K restorations of Napoleon Dynamite (20th anniversary) Go Fish (30th anniversary), Three Seasons (25th anniversary), and an extended version of DIG! (20th anniversary), featuring over 30 minutes of additional footage, titled DIG! XX. Also showing will be The Babadook and Pariah, and restorations of Mississippi Masala and The Times of Harvey Milk. Check out the whole Festival schedule here!

We are pleased to revisit some Festival history through our 40th Edition Celebration Screenings and Events. These are a great complement to our new programming premiering across sections, and our curatorial team is looking forward to bringing the mix of offerings in the 2024 lineup to audiences, says Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming, about the one-of-a-kind celebration lineup. Beyond the eight films screening, the 40th Edition celebration will continue in the mountains with a panel titled Power of Story: Four Decades of Taking Chances about the legacy of independent storytelling featuring Miguel Arteta, Richard Linklater, Dawn Porter, and Christine Vachon; a screening of seminal short films from Sundance's history hosted by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass; and a workshop for emerging creators with Carlos L pez Estrada and others.

This thrilling lineup adds to the 91 projects already announced that will be premiering and screening throughout the 12 categories (U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, Premieres, Spotlight, NEXT, Midnight, New Frontier, Family Matinee, Special Screenings, New Frontier, Episodic). Out of these 91 projects are 82 feature-length films from 24 countries across the globe.

About the upcoming program of his first Sundance Film Festival as Festival Director, Eugene Hernandez pulled back the curtain on what makes us all tick: Sundance's passion and power shines through its programming. Curation is Sundance's secret sauce and we're energized by the range of films, stories, and artists we've watched and selected from around the world. This Festival has had a vital history of

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/this-is-your-first-look-at-the-2024-sun...
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