By Shelby Shaw
Acts of care for your chosen kin don’t just include weaving friendship bracelets or showing up together at a party, as this list of projects screening at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival shows. From facing chaotic danger to getting plastic surgery to meeting IRL for the very first time, these selections of fiction and documentary titles present an international range of what friendship can look like.
Whether you plan to watch by yourself or with your BFF, this watchlist will introduce you to a variety of friendship tales across genres, which you can use to start building your Festival schedule, and nearly all of these titles are available online to enjoy from the comfort of home. Single Film Tickets are available for purchase here starting on January 16, 2025.
SHORT FILMS & EPISODIC PROJECTS
Bucks County, USA (Episodic) — Two teenage girls in Pennsylvania disagree politically but remain best friends in this docu-series whose first two episodes will be screening in the Festival’s Episodic section. Directed by Oscar winners Robert May and Barry Levinson, Bucks County, USA follows the residents of this swing county in a swing state, intensely important in an increasingly politically polarized America. Seen through the eyes of 14-year-olds Evi and Vanessa, the political disagreements around the school board and its policies raise questions of whether we can truly co-exist harmoniously or if a majority will always have to hold power. Available in person.
THE LILY (เดอะลิลลี่) (Short Film Program 4) — Actor Quintessa Swindell makes their writer-director debut with this tale of two childhood friends (Swindell and May Petchompoo), divided by a mutual hatred between their fathers, who face each other in a Muay Thai fight that physically and aggressively forces them to a resolution. Available in person and online as part of Short Film Program 4.
Miss You Perdularia (Short Film Program 3) — “Las Perdularias,” a self-named clique of Cuban high school girls, devise ways of filling their time while their island home inversely becomes emptier in this experimental nonfiction short from Manu Zilveti, a Brazilian director from a Bolivian immigrant family. Available in person and online as part of Short Film Program 3.
The Reality of Hope (Documentary Short Film Program) — In virtual reality, Hiyu bonds with his online friend Photographotter, while in real life, Hiyu is battling kidney failure. Defying the limitations of intangible VR, Photographotter flies from New York City to Stockholm in order to be a donor to save Hiyu’s real life in this new work from acclaimed VR creator and Sundance alum Joe Hunting. Available in person and online as part of the Documentary Short Film Program.
Swollen (Midnight Short Film Program) — Writer-director Roxy Sophie Sorkin stars as one of two BFFs who have just had plastic surgery and can’t decide whether to call the cops for a burglary gone wrong because of their skin-deep concern with being seen in a less-than-attractive post-op state of recovery. Available in person and online as part of the Midnight Short Film Program.
UPPER (Short Film Program 1) — Belgian writer-director Lennert Madou presents a story of two friends (Pablo Schils and Cyrille Mairesse) who find ways to pass the time and play games in a barren landscape as they await an asteroid expected to cross the sky. Available in person and online as part of Short Film Program 1.
FEATURES
Brides (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) — From acclaimed theater director and playwright Nadia Fall comes a debut film following two teenage girls (Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar) innocently and ambitiously seeking freedom from their less-than-ideal circumstances in the U.K. by fleeing to Syria. But running away, while bringing them into a closer bond, involves more change than they bargained to find: for their sociopolitical identities, their faiths, and what it means to be young with autonomy. Available in person and online.
FOLKTALES (Premieres) — Co-directing documentary veterans Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady return to Sundance with this look into the methods of traditional folk schooling in Arctic Norway, where teenagers are left to rely on each other and a pack of sled dogs for survival. Together, their education focuses on basics of life in the wilderness as an unconventional means to learn patience, kindness, and self-reliance. Available in person.
How to Build a Library (World Cinema Documentary Competition) — Kenyan musician and filmmaker Maia Lekow collaborated with co-director and husband Christopher King to make this documentary about friends Shiro and Wachuka, who set out to reclaim a library that had been segregated as whites-only until 1958. Now, the two Nairobi women turn it into a modern cultural hub that confronts the ghosts of Kenya’s colonialist history. Their enormous task not only involves the responsibility of reporting the truth but also making decisions on what aspects of a complicated and emotional history are better left behind, if any. Available in person and online.
Love, Brooklyn (U.S. Dramatic Competition) — First-time feature filmmaker Rachael Abigail Holder directs Paul Zimmerman’s script about three longtime residents of Brooklyn (played by André Holland, DeWanda Wise, and Nicole Beharie) who navigate their adulthoods’ coming-of-age amid New York City’s changing landscape. Relationships, parenthood, and careers face new hopes and starts for these characters whose stories are a love letter to what it’s like living in the city today. Available in person and online.
Sugar Babies (U.S. Documentary Competition) — Documentarian Rachel Fleit takes us into a rural town in Louisiana, where scholarship recipient Autumn devises an online sugar baby scheme for her and her friends to overcome their socioeconomic barriers. Using basic technology, Autumn’s business focuses on being remote and staying remote, with no interaction between the young women and the men who pay money for their photos, videos, and flirtatious chats. Asserting her power and drive to not be held back by her limited options around her, Autumn’s story illustrates one of the many entrepreneurial means people are turning to in order to help each other climb out of financial difficulty. Available in person and online.
Two Women (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) — Chloé Robichaud directs screenwriter Catherine Léger’s adaptation of the 1970 film Two Women in Gold by Claude Fournier, in which neighbors Violette (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and Florence (Laurence Leboeuf) are going through their own personal troubles: the challenges of parenting on maternity leave, depression, and a sense of failure. But seducing a delivery guy becomes a revolutionary mission. A witty and comedic take on two women’s dissatisfaction with marriage and the mental requirements of managing a home, compounded by their unmet physical needs for sexuality and erotic desire. Available in person and online.
Where the Wind Comes From (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) — Tunisian writer-director Amel Guellaty delivers this tale of two young adults who find escape from the troubles of a grim reality through their imaginations. When fierce and rebellious Alyssa (Eya Bellagha) and her shy older friend Mehdi (Slim Baccar) learn about a contest that could grant them the freedom they crave to leave their homes, they embark on a challenging adventure to southern Tunisia in order to try their hand at escaping the restraints of their uncertain futures. Available in person and online.
