The 2022 Sundance Film Festival, which is slated to return with an in-person presence in Park City next month, announced its Feature Film, Indie Episodic and New Frontier categories on Thursday.
The slate includes 82 feature-length films, culled from 3,762 feature-length submissions. Overall, the festival received 14,849 submissions from more than two dozen countries, according to the Sundance Institute.
The festival, which will include live events in Park City, Salt Lake City and Sundance Mountain Resort, as well as an online presence, is scheduled from Jan. 20-30.
Seeing the number of submissions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic warmed the heart of Festival Director Tabitha Jackson.
“Just seeing that many films that artists have made, or certainly finished, during the pandemic was incredibly moving, actually,” she said. “This community found a way to make things happen to tell these stories. And they managed to do it in the most challenging of circumstances.”
For the list of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival’s Feature Film, Indie Episodic and New Frontiers lineup, click here.
While Jackson has made it known that films aren’t selected because of issues or themes they address, she did say many of the 2022 screenings are a response to “this age of accountability.”
“There are films that are fighting the system, which may be one way of putting it,” she said. “Filmmakers are looking at structures — capitalism, the fight for democracy. And we are listening to what they are observing in the world.”
In addition, many filmmakers are utilizing various genre styles to tell these stories, said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival’s director of programming.
“We are seeing horror films throughout the program, and there are other films that use genre tropes to tell stories of racial justice and misogyny as psychological thrillers,” she said. “That was something really fascinating to see. It was an exciting trend we saw this year.”
In addition to the feature films, Sundance 2022 will unleash a rich selection in its Indie Episodic category, Yutani said.
“This is a program that we’ve been steadily building upon as another place of discovery, because we want to provide a place for the industry to connect with talented artists and people who have points of view that are worth hearing,” she said. “We have a showcase of projects — some are series pilots, and some are little tastes of larger ideas. We have many filmmakers who are hoping to launch these projects, gain more exposure and help these projects find lives so they can further develop them.”
Speaking of developments, the 2022 New Frontier program will expand on what Sundance did with last year’s virtual “Spaceship” format, Jackson said.
The Spaceship, which will be accessible by laptop or VR headset, will house an online gallery where festival-goers will be able to experience the New Frontier lineup, as well as interact with others, she said.
“The Spaceship was our innovation, our foray into the metaverse last year, because we wanted a place, even in an online festival, where people could gather and bump into each other,” Jackson said.
The Spaceship will also have a direct connection to the Egyptian Theatre, which will be New Frontier’s physical location this time around, she said.
Ticketed New Frontier performances will be presented in the theater and turned into simultaneous presentations on the virtual Spaceship, according to Jackson.
“We will open the entire festival with a premiere of a beautiful piece called ’32 Sounds’ by Sam Green that is about the origin of sound, and how sound is so intimate,” she said. “An audience in the Egyptian Theatre and an audience in the Spaceship will experience this work at the same time, and both audiences will be able to come together for a Q and A, where they can feel the presence of each other, and ask Sam Green questions.”
The in-person audiences will see Green and a moderator on stage, while those in the Spaceship will see avatars of Green and his moderator, Jackson said.
“It’s an experiment,” she said. “The whole festival is an experiment in converging and coming together in an expanded community, so we felt this was an appropriate way to kick it off. And we can’t wait to get back to Park City.”
For information about the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, visit sundance.org.