• By Mabel Pais

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival which took place January 22 to February 2. The awards were announced and presented on January 31 at a ceremony for the jury and audience award–winning films at The Ray Theatre in Park City, where independent storytelling was celebrated ahead of the Festival’s conclusion. The 2025 Festival featured premieres, screenings, talks, events, and more in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. All feature award-winning films were available online nationwide for ticket holders and passholders until February 2. For more information, visit festival.sundance.org.

“The past 11 days of the Festival have been a meaningful opportunity to connect as a community in support of independent storytelling,” said Amanda Kelso, Acting CEO, Sundance Institute. “We look forward to being reunited with audiences, artists, industry, and press next January for another edition of the Festival.”

AWARDS won by INDIAN FILMMAKERS

THE WORLD CINEMA GRAND JURY PRIZE: DRAMATIC was presented to ‘SABAR BONDA’ (Cactus Pears) / India, U.K., Canada (Director and Screenwriter: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade; Producers: Neeraj Churi, Mohamed Khaki, Kaushik Ray, Hareesh Reddypalli, Naren Chandavarkar, Sidharth Meer)

Anand, a 30-something city dweller compelled to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in the rugged countryside of western India, tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, Anand must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress.

Cast: Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman, Jayshri Jagtap.

World Premiere. Available online for Public.

Jury citation: This is a great modern love story. To say it’s an honor to award this tender film is an understatement. We cried, we laughed, and we wished to be loved in the same way. It is exactly what the world needs right now. This authentic point of view opens the door to an intimate language we all understand. We feel the humming heartbeat of the main character’s inner life, and when it bursts, it wraps us with its sweetness.

We award the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic to ‘Sabar Bonda’ (Cactus Pears).

JURY AWARDS FOR DIRECTING, SCREENWRITING, and EDITING

The Directing Award: U.S. Documentary was presented to GEETA GANDBHIR for ‘THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR’ / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Geeta Gandbhir, Producers: Nikon Kwantu, Alisa Payne, Sam Bisbee) — A seemingly minor neighborhood dispute in Florida escalates into deadly violence. Police bodycam footage and investigative interviews expose the consequences of Florida’s “stand your ground” laws.

World Premiere. Available online for Public.

Jury citation: The Directing award goes to a filmmaker of remarkably disciplined vision who turns creative constraints into cinematic power, creating a searing indictment of “stand your ground laws.”

The Directing Award: U.S. Documentary goes to Geeta Gandbhir for ‘The Perfect Neighbor.’

A U.S. Documentary SPECIAL JURY AWARD for ARCHIVAL STORYTELLING was presented to ‘SELENA LOS DINOS’ / U.S.A. (Director: Isabel Castro, Producers: Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, J. Daniel Torres, David Blackman, SIMRAN SINGH) — Selena Quintanilla — the “Queen of Tejano Music” — and her family band, Selena y Los Dinos, rose from performing at quinceañeras to selling out stadium tours. The celebration of her life and legacy is chronicled through never-before-seen footage from the family’s personal archive.

World Premiere. Available online for Public.

Jury citation: This award goes to a film that transported us to a specific time and place, evoking themes of family, heritage, love, and adolescence. The power of the story speaks to the essential nature of the archive — employed in this film to chart the emergence of a once-in-a-generation talent. The winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling goes to ‘Selena y Los Dinos.’

———————————————–

CURRENT FILMS

By Mabel Pais

REZ COMEDY

After the Canadian Screen Awards qualification theatrical run in Toronto last October, REZ COMEDY, the first all Indigenous stand-up comedy feature documentary world premieres on SVOD on AAM.tv and TVOD on Amazon Prime on Friday February 14, 2025, Valentine’s Day!

From the creators who won ‘Best Comedy Special’ at the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards, Rez Comedy is the first all-Indigenous stand-up comedy documentary feature, showcasing nine diverse and talented Indigenous comedians.

The feature film is produced and co-directed by Keith Nahanee, rising Squamish nation comic and filmmaker, and Comedy Invasion creator Quentin Lee, a 2024 Canadian Screen Award winner (academy.ca/2024/comedy-invasion-rez-style). It is also produced by Comedy Invasion producer Cindy AuYeung, 2024 Canadian Screen Award winner (academy.ca/2024/comedy-invasion-rez-style).

Rez Comedy is qualified for the 2025 Canadian Screen Awards in the following categories: Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary, Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary, Best Editing in a Feature Length Documentary, and Best Original Music in a Feature Length Documentary.

——————————————

DEATH WITHOUT MERCY – World Premiere @ Sheffield DocFest in 2024

Dir: Waad Al-Kateab (SAMA);

DEATH WITHOUT MERCY follows the harrowing journey of two Syrian families over ten harrowing days in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in 2023 and took 55,000 lives. As they search for their missing loved ones and try to make sense of the event, the film reveals unsettling truths about corruption, governmental negligence, and the systemic failures that exacerbated the disaster’s impact.

Through intimate first-hand survivor footage from under the rubble interwoven with television news reports, social media interaction, and closed circuit tv and drone footage, the film is at once a moving testament to human dignity and a heartfelt tribute to the lives that have been lost in this catastrophic event. The release is timely not only because of the two-year anniversary but also in light of current world events.

Broadcast/Streaming Launch Date: February 6, 2025, exclusively on Paramount+ with Showtime.

——————————————–

SILENT TREES – US Premiere: 2025 SlamDance Film Festival

Director: Agnieszka Zwiefka; Producer: Zofia Kujawska

SILENT TREES follows a Kurdish teen and her family as they find their lives on the cusp of being forfeited due to a dirty political power play between Belarus and Poland. Due to their circumstances, she has no choice but to assume the role of an adult well beyond her years if they are to survive in their new home. The film looks at one family, led by a spirited 16-year-old girl, whose lives are at risk due to the global refugee crisis and a political power play between Belarus and Poland.

While her father desperately tries to find work to feed and take care of his family while hampered by language barriers and other seemingly insurmountable hurdles, Runa finds comfort in drawing, which the film morphs into animated sequences that capture her dreams and nightmares.

DISPOSABLE HUMANITY – World Premiere: 2025 Slamdance Film Festival

Director: Cameron Mitchell; Executive Producer: Steve Way (Co-star of Hulu’s Ramy)

This eye-opening film delves deep into the dark history of the Nazi Aktion T4 program, where hundreds of thousands of disabled individuals deemed “unworthy of life” were systematically exterminated, highlighting the ongoing relevance of this tragic chapter in history in discussions about disability, worth, and societal perceptions of marginalized communities.

DISPOSABLE HUMANITY follows Cameron Mitchell’s family, who are Disability Studies scholars and filmmakers that have researched the Nazi Aktion T4 program since the 1990s. Through conversations with memorial directors, disabled people, and relatives of T4 victims, they uncover the horrifying truth: that the Nazi Aktion T4 program, was in fact the program where the Nazis trained killing staff and designed the apparatus of mass murder that led to the Holocaust. Disabled people were the first victims to be killed under the Third Reich and in this investigative documentary, the Mitchells reveal how this history has been covered over and erased from international public memory.

(Mabel Pais writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Social Issues, Spirituality, Cuisine, Health & Wellness, Business, and Education)