The Sundance Institute has announced the names of the 16 jury members for this year’s edition. Earlier this week, the organizers of the Utah-based festival revealed they had opted for the hybrid format due to the rise in COVID-19 cases in the US and around the world.
The festival will be held from 20 to 30 January via its online platform and at seven satellite screening venues around the US for the second weekend.
The jury for this year’s Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize includes neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Dr Heather Berlin; associate professor at Hunter College Dr Mandë Holford, PhD; actor-filmmaker Tenoch Huerta; filmmaker Lydia Dean Pilcher; and singer/songwriter-turned-filmmaker Shawn Snyder. They consulted each other in advance and have decided to award the prize to Kogonada’s After Yang, which was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
Producer Chelsea Barnard, actress-filmmaker Marielle Heller and Iranian American actor-filmmaker Payman Maadi will head the US Dramatic Competition jury, while filmmakers Garrett Bradley, Joan Churchill and Peter Nicks will adjudicate the US Documentary Competition.
Filmmakers Andrew Haigh and Mohamed Hefzy, along with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film curator La Frances Hui, will judge the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, while Visions du Réel artistic director Emilie Bujès, Centre for American Progress president and former diplomat Patrick Gaspard, and filmmaker Dawn Porter comprise the jury for the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
Filmmaker Joey Soloway will look at the NEXT competition section while Criterion Channel programming director Penelope Bartlett and filmmakers Kevin Jerome Everson and Blackhorse Lowe comprise the jury of the Short Film Programme Competition.
The awards for feature-length and short films will be announced on 28 January. The only Indian project at the festival this year is Shaunak Sen’s documentary film All That Breathes about two brothers who look after the black kite population in Delhi. The documentary feature will be screened in the World Cinema Documentary Competition section.