The 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the nonprofit Sundance Institute, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, presented the juried Feature Film Prize to Cristina Costantini for her work on “SALLY.”
Additionally, the recipients of three artist grants designed to support projects in development were announced — Ella Gale was awarded the Sloan Episodic Fellowship for Greenwashers, Katla Sólnes received the Sloan Development Fellowship for Eruption and Brittany Wang was granted the Sloan Commissioning Grant for Thin Ice.
The filmmakers collectively received a total of $84,000 in cash prizes and were honored at a reception hosted by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on Monday in Park City.
Prior to the reception, the Feature Film Prize winner Cristina Costantini participated in a Sloan Foundation-sponsored Beyond Film event, The Big Conversation: Breaking Barriers, where panelists discussed the scientific and technological barriers that are exemplified by broader cultural and social challenges faced by scientists, engineers, and mathematicians and how they are united in fascinating, complex narratives in film and television.
“We are deeply appreciative of our long-standing partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that allows us to honor artists that are exploring the connection between art and science,” said Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute acting chief executive officer. “The Science-In-Film Initiative’s Feature Film Prize and artist grants give us the opportunity to recognize the artists at the forefront of this exploration. We are thrilled to celebrate this year’s recipients and give them a space for discussion on this topic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.”
“We are delighted to honor Cristina Costantini’s ‘SALLY,’ a feature-length documentary that honors the remarkable, closeted life of pioneering astronaut and physicist Sally Ride, the first American woman to go to space,” said Doron Weber, vice president and program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We are also immensely pleased to award three screenwriting fellowships to three outstanding women writers — Ella Gale, Katla Sólnes and Brittany Wang — who explore the unique challenges faced by women in science determined to contribute to their field and be treated as equals. This year’s winners are wonderful additions to the nationwide Sloan film program and further proof of the vitality of our landmark, two-decade partnership with Sundance.”
“SALLY” has been awarded the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and received a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.
• “SALLY” / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Cristina Costantini, Screenwriter: Tom Maroney, Producers: Lauren Cioffi, Dan Cogan, Jon Bardin) –– Sally Ride became the first American woman to blast off into space, but beneath her unflappable composure was a secret. Sally’s life partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, reveals their hidden romance and the sacrifices that accompanied their 27 years together. World Premiere. Documentary.
The 2025 jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize included Michael Almereyda, Nia Imara, Monica Lopez, Nicholas Ma, and Sam and Andy Zuchero.
The jury shared “SALLY” was selected “for its moving portrait of a pioneering scientist and a complex human being who became the first American woman to fly in space and who insisted on living her own life while negotiating the restrictive culture of NASA and the mass media and for its engaging use of a rich archive to illuminate the secret history of an extraordinary American that reverberates to our own day.”
Ella Gale will receive a $17,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “Greenwashers” through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Fellowship. Previous recipients of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Fellowship include: “Tektite, “The Professor and the Spy,” “Our Dark Lady,” “The Harvard Computers” and “Higher.”
• “Greenwashers” / An idealistic young environmental engineer gets sucked into a water rights conspiracy at a shady consulting company.
Gale is a comedy writer, director and fiction podcaster. She started as a standup in Austin, Texas, before moving to Los Angeles. She is a Yes, And… Laughter Lab Fellow, Black List Feature Lab fellow and Black List/Hornitos short film grant recipient.
Her horror/comedy short “Hell Gig” played at Fantasia and Fantastic Fest, and is currently available on Alter. Her fiction podcast “Candy Claus, Private Eye” is an award-winning audio comedy about Santa’s bastard daughter solving hard-boiled Christmas crimes on the North Pole.
Sólnes will receive a $17,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “Eruption” through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Development Fellowship .She is also the recipient of the 2024 Sloan Screenwriting Award at Columbia University.
Previous recipients of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Development Fellowship include: “Satoshi,” “Light Mass Energy,” “Moving Bangladesh,” “Chariot” and “Tidal Disruption.”
Katla Sólnes is an Icelandic writer-director represented by True North Talent who recently graduated with her MFA from Columbia University, and has been the recipient of support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Icelandic Film Fund, and Indian Paintbrush. She is an adjunct assistant professor in Screenwriting at Columbia University.
• “ERUPTION”/ In the highlands of Iceland in 1972, a geologist’s wife finds her marriage tested when a wily American student arrives, stirring tensions as volatile as the volcanic landscape.
Wang will receive a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “Thin Ice” through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant.
• “THIN ICE” / In 1999, graduate student Jane Willenbring embarks on a research expedition under renowned glaciologist David Marchant. Upon reaching the remote Antarctic camp, Jane is forced to endure his endless physical and psychological torment. 17 years later, now an award-winning geomorphologist herself, can Jane face her past and bring Marchant to justice?
Previous winners of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant include: “Inverses,” “Incompleteness,” “The Futurist,” “Pharmacopeia,” “The Plutonians” and “Challenger.”
Wang is a screenwriter born in Tianjin, China, and raised in suburban Maryland. A child of divorced immigrant parents (a true double whammy), she writes about the unconventional ways outsiders redefine life on their own terms.
Wang was a LACAC fellow and completed her MFA at USC, where she received the Sloan Screenwriting Grant. She is also the recipient of the 2024 Sloan Screenwriting Award at USC and the 2024 Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize.
Ahead of the Feature Film Prize reception, guests attended a Beyond Film talk, “The Big Conversation: Breaking Barriers,” hosted by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, that centered on the themes explored in SALLY, this year’s Feature Film Prize winner.
Moderated by TV writer and executive producer at Edgewood Place Entertainment Wendy Calhoun, and featuring Costantini, “Guardians of the Galaxy” writer Nicole Perlman, professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School Dr. Chao-ting Wu, and NASA astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman, the panel delved into the art and science of breaking barriers.