Marielle Heller, Garrett Bradley and Dawn Porter are among the filmmakers who have been appointed to this year’s competition juries for the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, it was announced on Friday.
“These exceptional individuals will come together to offer a collaborative lens on our program,” Kim Yutani, the festival’s director of programming, said in a statement. “Their diverse personal perspectives can elevate work above the sum of its parts.”
Leading the U.S. Dramatic Competition jury are “C’mon C’mon” and “Booksmart” producer Chelsea Barnard, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” director Heller and Iranian actor and star of “A Separation” and “Westworld” Payman Maadi.
Bradley, filmmaker of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Time,” experimental filmmaker Joan Churchill and cinematographer Peter Nicks will lead the U.S. Documentary jury. “Weekend” (2011) director Andrew Haigh, Egyptian screenwriter Mohamed Hefzy and MoMA film curator La Frances Hui will lead the World Cinema Dramatic Competition jury. And Emilie Bujès, an artistic director for Visions du Réel, Patrick Gaspard, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and Porter, director of the documentary “The Way I See It,” will lead the World Cinema Documentary Competition jury.
The juror for the NEXT section of Sundance will be “I Love Dick” and “Transparent” creator Joey Soloway. And Penelope Bartlett, Kevin Jerome Everson, and Blackhorse Lowe will be the jury for the Short Film Program Competition.
Award winners for the feature-length and short film categories will be announced on Jan. 28, and festival audiences also have a chance to vote for the Audience Awards in the main categories, as well as for the festival favorite across the full feature film program. And award-winning films will be available for an extended run to watch during the fest’s closing weekend.
The jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize is Dr. Heather Berlin, Dr. Mandë Holford, PhD, Tenoch Huerta, Lydia Dean Pilcher, and Shawn Snyder. They deliberated in advance of the Festival and awarded the Prize to “After Yang,” directed by Kogonada and starring Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner Smith.
This year’s Sundance is officially going fully virtual, but it will still take place January 20-30 and in seven different satellite screens for in-person screenings across the country during the festival’s second weekend.