Two more documentaries will make their world premieres at the 2023 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance announced today the addition of several films to its official line-up including Beyond Utopia in the U.S. Documentary Competition. Directed by Madeleine Gavin and produced by Jana Edelbaum, Rachel Cohen, and Sue Mi Terry, Beyond Utopia offers an intimate portrait of families desperately trying to escape oppression. Gavin previously directed the 2003 doc What I Want My Words to Do to You: Voices from Inside a Women’s Maximum Security Prison, which premiered at Sundance and won the Freedom of Expression Award, and the 2016 Netflix true crime doc City of Joy.
Joining the Special Screenings section at Sundance today is Stephen Curry: Underrated. Directed by Peter Nicks, the film promises a revealing portrait of basketball star Stephen Curry, the eight-time NBA All-Star and three-pointer sharpshooter of the Golden State Warriors. Underrated marks a return to Sundance for Nicks, who won the festival’s directing prize in 2017 for The Force and directed the 2021 competition selection Homeroom. The film is produced by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, who is being honoured at the festival this year with the inaugural Sundance Institute | Variety Visionary Award, and Erick Peyton, who executive produced last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Short, The Queen of Basketball.
The festival also announced special in-person screenings of several Sundance selections that previously screened in virtual editions. Sundance will bring back Questlove’s Oscar winner Summer of Soul, which won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2021 online edition of Sundance, and Daniel Roher’s Navalny, which was declared the overall audience favourite at last year’s virtual Sundance and is a frontrunner in this year’s Oscar race. Also returning to the festival is 2021’s dramatic favourite CODA, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture – the first ever for a Sundance premiere – along with last year’s acclaimed Ukrainian drama Klondike.
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival runs in person and online from January 19 to 29.
