By Jordan Crucchiola
In our present moment, millions of Americans are feeling dissatisfied with systems that no longer serve them. From economic anxiety to political polarization to a sense that the United States is backsliding on progress made to uplift marginalized communities, the perception of whom the American dream actually belongs to has become dispiritingly limited. And while these issues can feel impossible to solve, the following slate of short films, episodic works, and feature-length projects examine both our past and present in hopes of providing a road map toward a better future. Be sure to purchase Single Film Tickets to either in-person or online screenings before they run out.
SHORT FILMS
Hoops, Hopes & Dreams (Short Film Program 1) — Sundance-supported filmmaker and artist Glenn Kaino makes his Sundance Film Festival screen debut with this short film that illuminates efforts by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to rally the youth vote through basketball. Subjects include former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, journalist Jemele Hill, famed Los Angeles Lakers player and general manager Jerry West, and more. Hoops, Hopes & Dreams unearths how this campaign of community outreach still echoes across politics today. Available to watch in person and online as part of Short Film Program 1.
EPISODIC
Bucks County, USA (Episodic) — At a time when the battle over public education has become one of the nation’s most divisive issues, Bucks County, USA is a new vital work. From a creative team that includes Academy Award winners Barry Levinson and Robert May as executive producers and co-directors, this series centers on two teenagers, Evi and Vanessa, living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — one of the most pivotal counties in the nation’s most pivotal general election swing state. Evi and Vanessa have diverging political beliefs, but they are best friends, and Bucks County, USA considers the intensely personal fights for control of local school boards and the policies they create through the lens of these young people watching it all play out and maintaining their own bond in an era when difference is being perceived as irrevocable divide. Available to watch in person.
Never Get Busted! (Episodic Pilot Showcase) — Barry Cooper was a police officer working in narcotics when he decided to leave the force and use all his accumulated knowledge to help regular people hack the system. After years spent pursuing folks for drug offenses, Cooper became disillusioned with organized law enforcement and turned against it. To get his message out, Cooper started distributing DVDs and created a YouTube channel devoted to educating viewers on how to navigate drug-related legal issues as well as the intricacies of drug laws to help people understand their rights. Now showrunners David Anthony Ngo and Erin Williams-Weir are bringing his message to a whole new audience. Available to watch in person and online as part of the Episodic Pilot Showcase.
FEATURES
The Alabama Solution (Premieres) — The United States oversees nearly two million incarcerated people from the federal level down to local institutions. This documentary from directors Charlotte Kaufman and Sundance Film Festival veteran Andrew Jarecki (The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, 2015 Sundance Film Festival; Capturing the Friedmans, 2003 Sundance Film Festival) uses the context of one specific prison to provide an exploded view of the inhumanity intrinsic to America’s globally unmatched carceral state. Jarecki and Kaufman harness points of view that are otherwise intentionally kept from the public’s gaze to expose a grueling way of life that includes cruel mistreatment and working conditions for inmates that parallel modern-day slavery. Available to watch in person.
Enigma (Premieres) — As the safety and freedom of trans folks has become a political flash point more than a matter of basic decency and bad faith media narratives flood the landscape with poison pills, it’s important that we seek out personal histories within the trans community to show the complexity and richness of so many lives bravely lived. Festival alum Zackary Drucker is an actor and filmmaker who previously premiered her co-directed film The Stroll in the 2023 Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Documentary Competition (where it won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Clarity of Vision), and Enigma has her returning with another nonfiction work. It tells the stories of April Ashley and Amanda Lear, whose lives dovetail into very different threads of trans history as Ashley publicly embraced her identity while Lear — a cult pop star who was once in the orbit of Salvador Dalí — was evasive when it came to speculation about her gender. Both of them are significant figures in trans history, which is not so much a secret history but one in deep need of being told. Available to watch in person.
Free Leonard Peltier (Premieres) — Leonard Peltier was a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota and a pivotal part of the landmark American Indian Movement. The movement organized in the face of issues such as police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans, and, in 1973, the group staged an occupation in the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This led to a monthslong standoff between members of the movement and federal agents, and tensions that would last for years to come. In 1975, agents arrived at Pine Ridge to serve multiple arrest warrants, and an ensuing shoot-out resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents and one AIM member. Peltier fled to Canada after the incident, but was eventually extradited and convicted in 1977 on two counts of first-degree murder, resulting in the life sentence despite accusations of falsified evidence in the case and Peltier maintaining his innocence. Directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France, Free Leonard Peltier remains a story of ongoing mistreatment of Indigenous peoples by the U.S. government that reverberates back through time, even as the film premieres just days after Peltier’s sentence was commuted by President Joe Biden on his final day in office. He will serve out the remainder of his sentence in home confinement. Available to watch in person.
Heightened Scrutiny (Premieres) — Anti-trans legislation is surging through the courts in America. The conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court of the United States has intimated a lack of alignment with expanding or protecting the rights of an already marginalized community, and sensationalized stories involving trans folks — especially children and the sports they play — have made the legal and media environments toxic for transgender people trying to live their lives unencumbered. Enter Chase Strangio, a trans lawyer working for the American Civil Liberties Union and arguing cases before the highest court in the land. Peabody Award nominee Sam Feder directed the Netflix documentary Disclosure (2020 Sundance Film Festival), and now he is mapping out another portion of the American trans story with Heightened Scrutiny, which follows Strangio as he prepares to face the SCOTUS in the name of historic trans litigation. In parallel to that, Feder details how corrosive media obsession with trans lives is leading to very real and very detrimental law being pushed through the justice system. Available to watch in person and online.
The Librarians (Premieres) — Director-producer Kim A. Snyder won a Peabody Award for her documentary Newtown (2016 Sundance Film Festival, PBS Independent Lens), and she most recently brought her documentary Us Kids to the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. For her latest nonfiction work, Snyder is taking audiences to the library. Libraries are one of our most egalitarian resources — free to all and providing access to books, periodicals, films, historical documents, and even internet for those who may not be able to otherwise access it. That makes librarians essential stewards of our present and our history, and their jobs have become more difficult amid emerging wars over censorship and which information is worthy to be shared. Book bans in states like Florida and Texas have catalyzed a wave of further threats to literature addressing LGBTQ+ and race issues. Despite facing harassment and threats, many librarians are coming together to protect children’s access to materials that can educate and empower them. Available to watch in person.
Middletown (Premieres) — With journalism in peril, stories about the power of the fourth estate to preserve and protect society are more important than ever. Sundance Film Festival regulars Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (Girls State, 2024; Boys State, 2020) return this year with a documentary about an unlikely group of teens who uncovered an environmental catastrophe threatening their community. The Electronic English class taught by Fred Isseks at Middletown High School in upstate New York was meant to encourage critical thinking and self-expression, and its students took that space to conduct a multiyear investigation that involved illegal dumping, organized crime, and political corruption. The teens used the fact that they were underestimated because of their age to catch adults off guard and get answers to buried questions, and Middletown brings together the former students who cracked open a criminal conspiracy to reflect on their experience, the power of journalism, and the impact of great teachers. Available to watch in person.
The Perfect Neighbor (U.S. Documentary Competition) — Florida’s “stand your ground” laws came to national attention in 2012 when a man named George Zimmerman shot and killed teenage Trayvon Martin in the name of what his lawyers argued was self-defense. Since then, similar laws have proliferated across the U.S. Now, filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir brings the story of one Florida woman to the Sundance Film Festival in The Perfect Neighbor, which shows how such laws and the behavior of a local “Karen” combine for dangerous outcomes. By incisively deploying police bodycam footage as the film’s main point of view, Gandbhir — co-director of the Emmy-winning Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power — lets the actions of the subjects speak for themselves, and in doing so holds up a magnifying lens to the U.S. justice system and whom it exists to provide justice for. Available to watch in person and online.
Ricky (U.S. Dramatic Competition) — Writer-director Rashad Frett started his journey with Ricky by showcasing it as a short film at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. He then developed the project into a feature film through Sundance Institute’s 2023 Screenwriters Lab, and now it will debut in the 2025 U.S. Dramatic Competition. Ricky is the story of a man incarcerated as a teenager who is then released in his 30s and must rejoin society with no adult life experience beyond the prison walls. He returns to his mother’s home a grown man whose last contact with the wider world came as a child, exposing the harsh limits of a process that purports to rehabilitate convicts but does not equip them to transition back into a manageable, law-abiding life outside of lockup. Stephan James stars as the titular Ricky, appearing alongside Sheryl Lee Ralph as his parole officer. Available to watch in person and online.
Seeds (U.S. Documentary Competition) — With her feature directorial debut, filmmaker Brittany Shyne demonstrates a craft and intuition that belies the number of credits to her name. Seeds is the story of Black farmers in the American South, and it documents the rich, generational connection these professionals have to their land as well as the challenges they face making a livelihood in such a difficult industry — especially compared to white farmers working in the same region who seem to come by funding so much easier. The number of acres owned by Black farmers has dwindled significantly over the last century, and Shyne’s subjects work tirelessly to secure the dream of passing the legacy of their land on to future generations. But beyond the struggle, Shyne also captures, in beautiful black and white, the care and humanity present in so many simple interactions that comprise daily life for these vital American producers. Available to watch in person and online.
