Sundance Movie Pageant programmer Sudeep Sharma: ‘We attempt to method our choice course of with curiosity and surprise’

Forward of this 12 months’s version, Hindustan Instances caught up with movie pageant programmer Sudeep Sharma, who works behind the scenes, specializing in documentary function movies. On this unique chat, Sudeep opened up about this 12 months’s programming course of, the lengthy historical past of Indian movies on the pageant and extra.

Do you suppose that there have been some topical traits within the movies that have been submitted to the pageant? If sure, what have been they?

Because of the giant variety of submissions, we obtain and assessment from the US and world wide, it’s troublesome to place them into unifying classes or traits. The factor that struck me this 12 months was the continued variety of voices and views within the movies and their creation by artists. Regardless of challenges and adversity, the resilience of filmmakers in making cinema is one thing we noticed in our programming course of time and again and is I feel mirrored within the movies within the lineup.

The Past Movie collection is among the buzziest sections of the pageant. What have been among the parameters that went on to construct these alternatives?

The Past Movie collection is curated by my programming colleague Ania Trzebiatowska and I’ll be moderating the Cinema Cafe dialog with Marlee Matlin and The Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Arden on Saturday, January 25. The movies are a place to begin however the thought for the collection is to have our pageant company in dialog with one another in an informal atmosphere about points and concepts that animate and excite them.

Sundance has advanced as an area for showcasing documentaries. What do you suppose contributes to the continued success by way of collection of the doc titles?

I feel it’s a mix of the excessive stage of the work of documentary filmmakers from world wide, the viewers we now have helped foster that’s prepared and excited to observe documentary movie, and our programming course of that’s devoted to showcasing rising filmmakers and pushed by an emotional and intellectually open engagement with the tales they inform. Having a historical past of enjoying among the most necessary and shifting documentaries of latest occasions has undoubtedly helped us construct on our capacity of being a spot to launch a documentary movie, however yearly is a recent slate and we attempt to method our choice course of with curiosity and surprise about the true life tales that exist throughout us and the completely different manner filmmakers inform them.

India’s Sabar Bonda can be chosen, making historical past as the primary Marathi function to be at Sundance. Final 12 months India’s Women Will Be Women received massive. Impartial movies from India (together with documentaries) have a robust connection to this pageant… what are your ideas on this?

For so long as I’ve been concerned in movie pageant programming and as only a movie lover, impartial Indian movie has had a wealthy previous, current and future! Indian movie tradition is vibrant, inventive and distinctive with so many various sorts of movies, language, cultures, however I feel 10-15 years in the past modifications in know-how and the way individuals may extra simply watch movies together with festivals serving to to put it on the market, there was an explosion of consciousness in world cineaste audiences.

As you say, Sundance has an extended historical past of enjoying documentary and narrative Indian impartial function movies like Machines, All That Breathes, In opposition to the Tide, Nocturnes, Taking The Horse To Eat Jalebis, Brahmin Naman, Liar’s Cube, Hearth In The Mountains simply to call a couple of. We now have additionally performed a variety of Indian shorts through the years too! I feel this displays the energy of Indian artists to make work regardless of the various challenges they face.

Inform us about among the joys in your function as a part of the Sundance Programming group within the present 12 months.

In the course of the 12 months, us programmers are touring to different festivals and movie occasions to listen to about upcoming documentary initiatives, however probably the most intense time of programming is watching submissions and discussing them with one another. That course of is troublesome and difficult however it’s also a joyful one in seeing so many thrilling and new movies you understand will change individuals’s lives once they see it. The one larger pleasure is the pageant itself and serving to filmmakers share their work with an viewers and enjoying a small function of their improvement as an artist. It looks like a real reward!

Santanu Das is protecting Sundance Movie Pageant 2025 as a part of the accredited press.