(L–R) Cristina Costantini, Tam O’Shaughnessy, Bear Ride, and Lauren Cioffi attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of “SALLY” at The Ray Theatre on January 28, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by Robin Marshall/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Lucy Spicer
Resplendent in an all-silver outfit — presumably an homage to a spacesuit — director Cristina Costantini steps up to the podium at The Ray Theatre before the January 28 premiere of her documentary SALLY at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. “This is really a dream come true for me. I can’t believe that I’m really here,” she says. “Sally was my hero as a kid, and Tam O’Shaughnessy is my hero as an adult.”
The Sally she — and the film’s title — is referring to is the late Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space. Tam O’Shaughnessy was Ride’s romantic partner of 27 years, a fact that was unknown to the general public until Ride’s death in 2012 from pancreatic cancer. “I wanted to make this film for anyone who’s ever had to hide part of who they are to get where they want to be. And I think, unfortunately, in 2025, this experience is going to be more real than ever,” adds Costantini. “In a time that’s filled with so much hatred, it feels radical to celebrate scientists, but, most of all, to celebrate love.”
Screening as part of the Festival’s Premieres section, SALLY is the winner of the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, which recognizes an outstanding film that centers ideas or characters with a focus on science and technology. The documentary chronicles Ride’s life, including her time at NASA in the 1970s and ’80s, during which she received near-constant media attention focusing on the fact that she was a woman. Archival footage of Ride in interviews with the press while she was at NASA reveals the careful, curated ways in which she answered questions to ensure that she highlighted her competence and diverted attention from any perceived differences between the men and women on the team. Watching this footage with the additional knowledge that Ride was hiding her sexuality is a solemn reminder that we can’t know how many great minds in history felt the need to hide their true selves in order to fulfill their professional ambitions.
O’Shaughnessy joins the documentary’s director at the front of the theater for the post-screening Q&A. “Once Sally passed away, I just always wanted the real story of her life to come through. A truthful documentary, not a TV movie, not fiction, the real thing,” explains O’Shaughnessy. “I think it’s really important because Sally’s a national hero and she inspired — as a role model — countless generations of girls and women. And men! Boys!” To O’Shaughnessy, it didn’t seem right that such an important aspect of Ride’s life — their relationship — should stay hidden. Interviews with O’Shaughnessy, in which she recounts her decades-long history with Ride, accompany dreamlike re-creations of pivotal moments in their relationship in order to create a record of their love story, which is part of Ride’s legacy, even if few people knew about it while she was alive.
Nothing could exemplify the endurance of Sally Ride’s legacy better than the two individuals who open and close the audience question portion of the film’s post-premiere Q&A. “I don’t have a question, I just have a ‘thank you,’” expresses a woman sitting in the front row of the theater, the first to raise her hand for a chance to address the team standing up front. “I wanted to thank you for sharing and telling this story. I would like to share with you — I worked with Sally at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and as an early female engineer, I looked up to her, one of the few there. And I remember asking her for advice, and she said, ‘Always challenge the status quo.’ I retired from NASA after 38 years on January 17 and came here really looking forward to seeing this story,” she explains to applause and cheers from those around her.
Ride clearly remains an inspiration to her contemporaries, and she continues to inspire girls generations later — even girls who were born after Ride passed away. “This isn’t really a question either,” says a small voice from the audience before the Q&A concludes. “I’m 11 years old, and as a girl myself, I’m just really grateful for you doing this film because I think that every young girl should wanna do whatever they want.”
