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The documentary field is in flux, and many filmmakers are in trouble.

The Sundance myth is a powerful distraction keeping much of our community and nearly the entire documentary business in a state of naive limbo. Here’s how the myth goes: make a great film; beat out the other 16,000 applicants and premiere your film at the fest; sell your film; make your money back and more; live happily ever after.

After years of flashy multi-million-dollar acquisitions by streaming services, our independent filmmaker community has been told this is the Golden Age of documentary. In reality, theatrical releases for docs are dead, film festival shopping sprees have ceased, and the streaming wars are changing what you watch and what filmmakers choose to make. Big streamers like Netflix and Hulu are heavily investing in celebrity-focused, true crime and reality TV content that will be enjoyed by a broad demographic – but the vast majority of filmmakers are left out of the party.

The truth is, only a few filmmakers will ever get a big deal from a large streaming platform. Even if they do, many don’t receive the lion’s share of the money, as distributors, agents and publicists take their cut first. Filmmakers I know who seemingly “made it” with the golden streamer handshake have still ended up just breaking even or remaining in the red.

Sundance 2023 again showed us that the festival is a curator of great films, but it is becoming less and less relevant as a marketplace for distribution. It’s a distribution delusion to think that a filmmaker’s best path to career success is to premiere at Sundance. This notion doesn’t just distract the filmmakers who were at the recent festival in Park City or the thousands of applicants to the fest. It also distracts the tens of thousands of filmmakers in the world who are telling important stories and trying to figure out how to build a career while doing so. Sundance is running on fumes and is propping up Hollywood myths with filmmakers paying the price.

This year, just a handful of Sundance documentaries were acquired during the festival. Many of the films with distribution were originals with distribution lined up before the fest. This leaves most documentary filmmakers, even those with the golden ticket to the main stage, behind and unsupported. It’s not news that independent filmmakers are struggling against the big boys to gain visibility for their work. Filmmakers are continuing to hustle to share their stories, as they always have, but the current environment is becoming increasingly challenging. That’s why we must support documentary filmmakers in new and effective ways – the makers of these impact-driven films need new, alternative approaches to sharing their work and making a living.

While the Sundance myth is on life support, there is a beacon of hope for filmmakers and for audiences who want to watch great documentaries with a purpose. It may not be scalable in the way the streamers want, but indie filmmakers that are succeeding are creating a custom distribution strategy that is specific to the film’s topic and its target audiences. Every film has a unique story, or it’s a story that we’re telling from a unique perspective. A distribution, fundraising and festival strategy should be just as unique as the film itself to get it in front of an engaged audience.

Quick story from my firsthand experience that helped open my eyes to this issue. With my last documentary, “Age of Champions,” I took an untraditional approach to distribution. The film spurred a national grassroots screening campaign reaching 3,000 communities and generating $1.5 million from sponsors like AARP. Another example is Joanna James, the first-time filmmaker behind the documentary “A Fine Line” about women in the restaurant industry. Joanna became overwhelmed with positive feedback at film festivals and screenings and even gained accolades. She knew her film was worthy of making a widespread impact but had little knowledge of the business side of the industry. With guidance, she made $500,000 in PBS underwriting from sponsors like Pepsi and GrubHub. Or take Amanda Dyer, director of “Unseen” about parent caregivers. She raised nearly $30,000 with just her first virtual event with organizations supporting parents. She also generated over 280 requests for community screenings and secured a national PBS broadcast rather than spending her time on pie-in-the-sky festivals.

Sundance is a dream for many filmmakers, including myself. I went this year because it still matters and holds a prominent place in our industry. Attending festivals can support a film if and only if a filmmaker doesn’t rely on distributors in shining armor to save them. You must take matters into your own hands, think deeply about your target audiences and create a unique strategy for your release based on your film’s uniqueness. Sundance and festivals like it should not be seen as the finish line, but rather a kick-off for getting a film into the world and the first big opportunity to elevate an important story.

(Keith Ochwat is a filmmaker and co-founder of Show&Tell. Over his 12-year career as a documentary filmmaker, he produced three films that appeared on PBS and Netflix. Show&Tell trains and advises documentary filmmakers on how they can distribute and fundraise for their films in new and effective ways.)

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The Park City Institute and Park City School District have announced a memorandum of understanding that will allow the institute to continue presenting live music, theater and other cultural events at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.

The announcement comes after more than a year of negotiations between the Institute — a nonprofit that introduces emerging artists, welcomes celebrated musicians and produces award-winning theater in the community — and the school district over the use of the venue, which also serves as Park City High School’s auditorium, according to a press release.

“This memorandum of understanding will extend the ability for the Park City Institute to program community events in the Eccles,” said Ari Ioannides, Park City Institute executive director. “We will continue to collaborate with the school district administrators and other community partners to assure cultural events can take place at the Eccles when not being used for our local students.”

In addition, the memorandum will provide additional revenue to the school district, which serves more than 4,500 students, through a $2 facility use fee that will be added to Park City Institute tickets, he said.

The Park City Institute first entered into a scheduling agreement in 1995, when it was known as the Park City Performing Arts Foundation, with the Park City School District to provide programming through the Eccles Center. 

The agreement established an advisory board that included members from the Arts Council of Park City and Summit County, the Park City Chamber of Commerce, the School Board superintendent and a member of the Park City Education Foundation, who would work on scheduling and coordinate access to the venue with the Park City Institute’s executive director.

Throughout the past 25 years, the Park City Institute has alleged the Park City School District worked to gain more control over the venue’s programming through a combination of board policy and more restrictive agreements, the institute said in an earlier statement.

After negotiating an agreement with the school administration last May, the school board informed Ioannides that it was “inclined to let the agreement expire.”

In October a group of Park City Institute Board members, led by Interim President Jason Owen, met with Park City School District Superintendent Dr. Jill Gildea, Chief Operations Officer Michael Tanner, and School Board members Anne Peters and Erin Grady, to find a way for the institute to continue programming.

The meeting eventually led to the memorandum of understanding that would, in part, put the school district’s needs at the top of the list, Gildea said in a statement.

“This agreement will ensure district needs are prioritized, provide equitable community access, facilitate world-class cultural programming, and provide a reliable source of funds for the maintenance and operations of the Eccles Center,” she said.

After securing the memorandum of understanding, the Park City Institute’s goal is to extend its long-standing contract with the Sundance Institute to continue screenings at the Eccles Center during the annual Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance Institute Managing Director Betsy Wallace said in a statement that she is pleased the Park City School District and the Park City Institute have successfully ended their negotiations.

“Sundance Institute is excited that Park City School District and Park City Institute have finalized the agreement allowing the Institute to continue its legacy of providing high quality and diverse programming for both residents and visitors of Park City to enjoy,” Wallace said. “It also allows Sundance Institute to continue its over 20 year relationship with Park City Institute to showcase independent films during Sundance Institute’s annual Sundance Film Festival at the marvelous George S. & Dolores Dore’ Eccles Center Theater for the Performing Arts.”

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Park City leaders want to learn whether traveling by car during the Sundance Film Festival in January was a heartwarming love story.

Or a horror flick.

City Hall has posted a survey delving into festival-related issues, including, importantly, someone’s experience navigating the roads. The survey opened less than a month after the festival ended. It incorporated a widely criticized package of changes to the traffic flow in Old Town likely causing lingering displeasure.

Sundance returned as an in-person event in January after two consecutive moves online due to the pandemic. The closely related issues of traffic and transportation have long been crucial to the overall logistical plan of Sundance, and a series of steps were taken this year designed to improve the traffic situation in the Old Town core. They involved several one-way restrictions, including on Main Street, and other measures.

But traffic quickly overwhelmed Park City during the opening weekend of Sundance. The backups were especially bad on Main Street and Swede Alley even for Sundance as lines of cars were repeatedly seen inching forward. One driver for a limousine service, Sundance traffic veteran Eli Weingarten, during the festival described the conditions on Main Street at the busiest times as being “a self-perpetuating loop of doom.”

City Hall on the first Sunday of Sundance made alterations to the traffic blueprints in response to the deteriorating conditions. The traffic appeared to ease significantly after the opening weekend.

The survey inquires about traveling in Park City during Sundance, with the questions about that topic appearing to be some of the most notable. The municipal government asks survey takers to rate the ease of travel in a car during the first five days as well as the final six days. The ratings range from “Excellent” to “Poor.” Officials also want to learn about the ease of travel by transit during the two time periods.

The survey seeks information about safety, parking services, the access to someone’s neighborhood and City Hall’s outreach. It also requests information about municipal services that “went well” during Sundance and whether someone suggests alterations to municipal services during the festival in 2024.

Officials plan to compile the results and the feedback from the survey and submit the information to Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council. A debriefing about Sundance with Park City officials and festival organizers is scheduled in late April. The annual debriefing is usually an early step in the logistical planning for the following year’s event. The sides will, with near certainty, address the concerns about the traffic flow that arose this year as they discuss the plans for 2024. The planning for the festival in 2024 is expected to stretch for months and continue toward the opening of Sundance next January.

Sundance, particularly the opening weekend, is usually the busiest time of the year in Park City, rivaled only by the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. Traffic can be awful, even after numerous modifications to the logistical plans over the years, as large crowds of film lovers, celebrity gawkers, the entertainment media and corporate sponsors converge on Park City for one of the top festivals on the international circuit.

Some people who live in the Park City area see Sundance as a chance to be in the crowd of a star-studded world premiere while others consider the festival to be an extraordinary economic opportunity. There are some, though, who instead are leery of the large crowds and traffic.

The survey is scheduled to expire on Feb. 26. The survey is available at: https://polco.us/n/res/vote/park-city-ut/2023-sundance-film-festival-2?pn-method=open.

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The Park City Police Department continued to receive complaints about parking issues throughout the Sundance Film Festival, something that was anticipated with the event drawing large crowds and with festival-related parking restrictions reducing the number of spots available.

The cases reported to the Police Department between Jan. 23 and Jan. 29 followed after an earlier string of problems during the opening weekend of Sundance. The festival usually draws some of the largest crowds of the year to Park City, and parking problems have long been one of the chief complaints to the police during the Sundance.

City Hall and festival organizers over the years have crafted parking and transportation blueprints, but reports to the police are commonplace during Sundance. There were more than 50 complaints about parking issues filed with the Police Department between Jan. 23 and Jan. 30. Public police logs in many of the cases did not provide details. The reports were logged in disparate locations in Park City. Some were in locations where crowds gathered while others were in neighborhoods that did not have a direct connection to the hubbub of Sundance.

Some of the cases included:

• on Friday, Jan. 27 at 10 p.m., the police were told a car was left in a driveway on King Road, blocking someone from leaving the residence.

• on Jan. 27 at 6:06 p.m., a car was reportedly left in a private driveway on Hillside Avenue.

• on Jan. 27 at 3:34 p.m., a vehicle was reportedly parked in the wrong direction on Main Street.

• on Thursday, Jan. 26 at 11:31 a.m., the police were informed of a delivery driver encountering difficulty on Park Avenue. The police were told there were cars “blocking” the route to the delivery. The person told dispatchers “it’s a one lane road and no one can get through,” according to police logs.

• on Monday, Jan. 23 at 4:12 p.m., a complaint was logged about the parking spots outside the Main Street post office. The person who contacted the police indicated they went to collect their mail “and all of the parking spots are being used by Sundance people,” according to the Police Department.

There were other cases involving vehicles left in private driveways on streets like Daly Avenue and Park Avenue.

The police, meanwhile, on Jan. 27 at 5:41 p.m. received an inquiry from someone in the area of the intersection of Woodside Avenue and 13th Street, where the person said “his truck does not fit in the underground parking” and he was “wanting to make sure his vehicle isn’t going to be towed,” according to police logs. 

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Poet and activist Tricia Hersey described burnout as  trauma during a Sundance Film Festival panel discussion called “Going Nowhere: On Burnout and Attention Crisis” on Saturday at the Filmmaker’s Lodge.

“I like to reframe burnout in my work as worker exploitation,” she said. “You’re burned out possibly because where you work is exploiting your labor.”

Hersey then described attention crisis as external forces stealing our time.

“It’s a personal and also cultural phenomenon,” she said.

In the context of the panel, these issues pertain to filmmakers, actors and other industry workers who spend well over 18 hours a day on sets and projects. But the discussion also concerns the general public, who are pulled in many different directions from family, finance, expectations and work.

Hersey moderated the panel that featured actor Jonathan Majors, comic-book author, screenwriter Adrian Tomine and food writer and film producer Ruth Reichl, who added their voice and concerns to the burnout crisis.

Reichl, producer of Laura Gabbert’s documentary “Food and Country,” a film that follows Reichl as she discusses the immediate and systemic challenges facing farmers, ranchers and chefs, believes one of the secrets of avoiding burnout is to make the job not about what the job definition is, but what people’s talents are.

“I took over a magazine (where) three editors at the top made all the decisions,” she said. “It was a company that believed in creative dissonance, which is if you make people unhappy, they’ll work better.”

So the first thing Reichl did was tell her employees that they, not the three editors, were going to tell her how they were going to work.

“I told them, ‘You’re going to decide what to do,’” she said. “I said, ‘If you feel like you need to take time off, take time off.’ And I think what we proved in those 10 years is that people work better when they’re happier.”

Unfortunately, many of the businesses in the country run the same way the magazine did before Reichl took over, she said.

“I think we need to make all of America understand that if you give people good work, they will like to do it,” she said. “They will do it better. They will be happier, and you will be happier. I had people (at the magazine) tell me they loved coming to work.”

While burnout can happen anywhere, it can hit especially hard on immigrant families, especially those who aren’t accustomed to the American culture, and other minorities, Hersey said.

“My own experiences as a black woman in America (are of) my parents telling me ‘You’ve got to work 10 times harder, because you’re a black girl,’” she said. “(It’s the) things that society is pushing on us. And that’s part of our socialization.”

Majors, who appears in Elija Bynum’s “Magazine Dream,” a feature that tells a fitting story about a bodybuilder and the harmful effects of his intense drive for recognition, said one of the symptoms of burnout is lack of passion.

“Passion is the oil in the car,” he said. “There’s a lack of accountability, and a lack of responsibility.”

The lack of responsibility is another big problem, but while the simple solution is to turn down projects, the current culture won’t allow that, Majors said.

“You’ve got this American thing happening where you’ve got to work, you’ve got to go and go and go,” he said. “Then the disappointment that comes when the Ameritocracy that you thought you were participating in has completely turned you over.”

Sometimes the people who work hard on passionless projects burn up their engines, Majors said.

“Sometimes they leave us early, and that’s scary,” he said.

One way Majors stays passionate is to maintain his curiosity, and find a way to experience the good and bad. 

“We could practice spending more time in the middle,” he said. “I can tell you that when anything great has happened with anybody I’ve seen or for myself, it is when we are at a high level of discomfort. And that’s our fuel.” 

While there are no quick-and-easy solutions to stop burnout, one way Tomine has dealt with burnout is to work on projects of different levels, importance and stakes, which also means drawing something in his sketchbook that no one may ever see.

“I think it was during the pandemic, I started doing drawings for myself, which I had lost sight of,” he said. “It really opened up some part of my brain. It was a different part of creativity that can be lost when you’re on that hamster wheel of a career.”

Tomine, whose graphic novel “Shortcomings” is the base of Randal Park’s dramatic Sundance Feature of the same name, said it was important for him to get back to why he started drawing comics in the first place.

“A lot of what I’m doing now is trying to trick myself back to that mindset where there was no audience, there was no paycheck,” he said.

While Tomine reaches back to the original reasons he started drawing to deal with his burnout, Majors takes care of himself by taking naps and not creating any social media accounts.

Reichl, on the other hand, found one of the ways to rekindle her motivational spark is to find ways to change her attitude.

“I’ve had to do jobs I didn’t want to do,” she said. “(So) the idea is not finding complete happiness, but finding a bit of happiness in something that isn’t pleasant. I’m going to find a way to make this ok.”

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“The Persian Version,” A feature film based on Maryam Keshavarz’s Iranian-American family, and “Kokomo City, a film that presents the stories following four Black transgender sex workers, were the darlings of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony Friday morning.

“The Persian Version” took home the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, and Keshavarz was bestowed the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic.

“Kokomo City” also landed two awards — the NEXT Innovator Award and the NEXT Audience Award. The film’s director D. Smith, during her acceptance speech for the Audience Award, told about the lost relationship she experienced with her father over identity. 

“I hope that this film somehow comes across his timeline and he finds some space to be proud of me, or compelled to watch the film and understand the truth of true transgenderism” she said. “I want every trans woman, every Black person, every Black woman, to understand we’re on the precipice of a revolution. We’re on the precipice of healing.” 

For her Audience Award acceptance speech, Keshavarz stepped to the microphone and said she had been crying in her hotel room Thursday night.

“(I was crying) because the eight-year-old in me never thought an American audience would come and watch a film about my family,” she said. “I was born in America, but I never felt truly American. To have people laugh and be filled with joy and clap and dance meant so much to me.”

In another colorful segment of the ceremony, filmmaker Anna Hints celebrated her Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary for her film “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” by singing a thank-you song to the Sundance Film Festival family in her native Icelandic.

Other awards included the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary to Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson for “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic to Charlotte Regan for “Scrapper” and the Festival Favorite Award to “Radical,” by Christopher Zalla.

This year’s Sundance Film Festival marks the first in-person event since 2020, and the Sundance Institute changed things up a bit and hosted its 2023 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Ray Theatre. 

The award-winning films will screen in person and via the online Sundance Film Festival platform on Saturday, Jan. 28, and Sunday, Jan. 29. Tickets for all award-screening films are available at festival.sundance.org.

For a full list of the award winners, see accompanying box.

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Kemo Sabe, a Main Street store that sells Western wares, opened in early December, in time for the holiday crowds and, shortly afterward, the Sundance Film Festival.

The store, toward the southern end of the shopping, dining and entertainment strip, by Thursday was pleased with the sales numbers during the first Sundance it was open. Kelcey Proctor, the vice president, described Kemo Sabe sales as performing fairly well. The opening weekend was especially busy, she said.

The sales numbers during Sundance were on budget, Proctor said. The festival crowds bought lots of cowboy hats, which range in price from $350 to $995, selecting their favorites from a large wall covered with choices. Apparel also sold well.

“Lot of high end. I’m sure we had a couple celebrities,” she said.

Next year during Sundance, Proctor said, Kemo Sabe would consider hosting parties and live music while remaining open to the public.

Another business on Main Street, Woodbury Jewelers, indicated sales were outpacing numbers from some previous festivals. Sales during the opening weekend in 2023 compared to 2019 were up 1,000%. The numbers were also up, by 25%, from the opening weekend of 2018.

Sagan Woodbury, the owner of the jewelry store, said the Sundance crowds did not appear as large as they were during the pre-pandemic festivals, making room for other customers.

“I did talk to skiers who weren’t afraid to come to Main Street,” he said.

There were rumblings, though, that sales numbers for some businesses in a variety of sectors in the Main Street core did not approach those of festivals prior to the pandemic. Although the street was busy, especially in the opening days, there seemed to be a midweek lull that was even more pronounced than usual.

Economic numbers during the closing weekend of the festival usually do not match the opening.

Sundance has long been one of the most lucrative stretches of the year in Park City, only challenged by the holidays, but it was not clear prior to the opening whether the high-spending crowds would return. Moreover, while the lodging, restaurant and transportation industries typically enjoy especially large bumps in business during Sundance, the numbers for retailers can be spotty with the festival crowds so focused on screenings, dealmaking and parties rather than shopping.

The 2023 edition of the festival is the first to be held as an in-person event since 2020 after the live events were canceled for two consecutive years as a result of concerns about the pandemic. The level of spending this year was one of the key questions as the opening neared. It was not clear whether the crowds would return in the same numbers as before with there being continuing concern about the spread of the novel coronavirus. It was also not clear whether the spending would be in line with pre-pandemic festivals with worries about the economy so prevalent.

Details about the economic numbers are expected to be made public later in the year. Sundance itself normally funds a study that details the economic impact of the festival, highlighting spending figures by industry. City Hall, meanwhile, tracks monthly sales-tax numbers. The Sundance report and the sales-tax figures are not expected to be available for several months, though.

The Park City economy has enjoyed upside surprises since the early months of the pandemic. Skiers returned in large numbers while visitors in the summer and fall have also been drawn to the outside activities. The economic numbers during Sundance will add to what has already appeared to be a solid winter for business in Park City.

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A true story of espionage thrilled audiences and juries of the 29th Slamdance Film Festival this past week.

And now it has the hardware — three Sparky awards — to prove it.

Law Chen’s “Starring Jerry as Himself,” about how a man, Jerry Hsu, was recruited by the Chinese police to investigate an international money-laundering racket, not only took home the Documentary Feature Audience Award Thursday night. It also won the festival’s Documentary Feature Jury Award.

The documentary’s subject, Jerry Hsu, was also named Outstanding Actor thanks to the way Chen pieced together the film’s unique reenactments.

Slamdance’s jury called “Starring Jerry as Himself” a “provocatively crafted and tightly wound suspense tale that feels like solving a shape-shifting puzzle.”

The film’s producer, Jonathan Hsu, Jerry’s son, was overwhelmed by the love.

“Thank you Slamdance for finding this film and really championing it,” he said as emotion cut him short for a brief spell. “I want to thank Law, who really had the creative vision and the ability to push this through. He had to give this outsider’s perspective to show us who we are, because we were in the thick of it. I’m so happy with this family. I’ll keep them.”

If Hsu showed his emotions through his verbal acceptance speech, Peter Hoffman Kimball conveyed his emotions in American Sign Language upon receiving the Unstoppable Grand Jury Award for “Millstone,” a drama — featuring an entirely Deaf cast and shot in ASL — about a couple who recently lost their child and their therapist who may or may not be helping them cope.

“Wow, this is a huge honor for me,” Kimball said through an interpreter. “This story is so beautiful, but at the same time it’s so touching. And we just feel like this developed a connection with everybody.” 

The night also included the presentation of the AGBO Fellowship to Tij D’Oyen, whose narrative short “Lollygag” is about a woman who remembers her next door neighbor boy.

The fellowship, established by Joe and Anthony Russo in 2018, is given through AGBO Films, the brothers’ independent television and film production company. It includes a $25,000 prize and gives a filmmaker a mentorship with the filmmaking duo.

The award was announced by last year’s AGBO Fellowship winner Ethan Eng.

“This fellowship is really cool,” Eng said before announcing D’Oyen’s name. “It’s changed my life for sure. And someone’s going to have a really good day today.”

D’Oyen was taken aback.

“Thank you so much,” he said before heading back to his seat where he got a little emotional.

Other awards of the evening included Theodore Collatos’s “Palookaville,” which won the Episodes Grand Jury Prize; “The Underbug,” which took home the Breakouts Grand Jury Award; and Aaron David Harris, director of “H-Squad: The Interactive Experience,” was presented the George Starks Spirit of Slamdance Award by Starks’s brother, Jason. (See accompanying list).

Slamdance co-founder Peter Baxter wrapped up the ceremony and told the crowd that this year’s Slamdance, the first in-person festival since 2020, showcased “an array of incredible, new independent films that pushed the boundaries of visual storytelling.”

It also expresses the world today, he said.

“We celebrate the winners, and, crucially, the strength and edge of this overall program,” Baxter said. “Everybody here is elevating, lifting, the art of filmmaking. So we’re just so excited that’s happened here at Slamdance this week.”

Baxter also revealed the origins of the Sparky, the film festival’s award.

“We were looking for an award for Slamdance, but we didn’t want a plaque or an Oscar,” he said. “We wanted something that really fit.”

Baxter saw someone selling toys at a kiosk, and noticed a plastic dog that had fallen into a puddle.

“I thought that’s going to be our award,” he said. “The reason why is because it wasn’t valued at the time. It cost a quarter and we turned it into a bronze that many of you have now. The key for all of this was the physical act of lifting this dog, which became part of the litter we share with our filmmakers. And we’re all its caretakers. We rely on you all to keep moving forward.”

The 2023 Slamdance Film Festival ran in-person from Jan. 20-26. It is currenlty running through Jan. 29 at slamdancechannel.com.

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The Sundance Institute Science-in-Film initiative and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation celebrated this year’s Feature Film Prize winner, “The Pod Generation,” directed by Sophie Barthes and the recipients of three artist grants for three projects in development at a reception Monday following the “Appetite for Construction” panel at the Filmmaker Lodge.

The four filmmakers received a total of $70,000 in funding through the prize and three artist grants for projects: Benjy Steinberg for The Professor and the Spy received the Sloan Episodic Fellowship, Cynthia Lowen for Light Mass Energy received the Sloan Development Fellowship, and John Lopez for Incompleteness received the Sloan Commissioning Grant.

“We are in a global moment where arts institutions must recognize in actionable ways the importance of science in media and entertainment, and Sundance Institute is deeply appreciative that the Sloan Foundation has partnered with us over two decades to nurture that connection,” said Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente. “It’s a pleasure to return to Park City to honor our Feature Film Prize winner and grantees after an engaging chat with our panelists about the bright side of science and the ethical framework scientists and storytellers alike bring to the idea of progress.”

“The Pod Generation” has been awarded the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and received a $20,000 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. The 2023 jury for Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize included Dr. Heather Berlin, Jim Gaffigan, Dr. Mandë Holford, Shalini Kantayya and Lydia Dean Pilcher.

“We are delighted to honor Sophie Barthes’ ‘The Pod Generation,’ an original, futuristic-looking romance that engages with contemporary issues about reproductive technology and its impact on evolving gender roles and what it means to be a parent in the age of AI,” said Doron Weber, vice president and program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “At the same time, we are immensely pleased to award three screenwriting fellowships to three outstanding writers – John Lopez, Benjy Steinberg and Cynthia Lowen – who explore scientific history and revisit the role of great men of science through the perspective of women and maverick sensibilities. This year’s winners are wonderful additions to the nationwide Sloan film program and further proof of the vitality of our pioneering, two-decade partnership with Sundance.”

The jury shared that it selected Barthes’s futuristic romantic comedy for its “bold, visually-arresting depiction of a brave new parenthood in which AI and artificial wombs provide technological benefits at the expense of our relationship to nature and to our own humanity, and for a woman artist’s exploration of shifting gender roles dissociated from biology.”

“The Pod Generation” stars Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rosalie Craig, Vinette Robinson and Jean-Marc Barr, and it is set “in a not-so-distant future, amid a society madly in love with technology,” where tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share their pregnancies via detachable artificial wombs or pods. 

A Belgium, France and U.K. co-production, the film is produced by Geneviève Lemal, Yann Zenou, Nadia Kamlichi, Martin Metz and screened within the Premieres section of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival lineup.

A Columbia University graduate, Barthes is a Franco-American filmmaker. Her directorial debut, “Cold Souls” (2009), with Paul Giamatti and Emily Watson, was released by Samuel Goldwyn.

“Cold Souls” played in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Sophie is a Sundance Screenwriters & Directors Lab alumna. Her second feature, “Madame Bovary,” with Mia Wasikowska, was released in 2015 after premiering at the Telluride FIlm Festival.

Other Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowship recipients include:

• Benjy Steinberg (writer) will receive a $10,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for “The Professor and the Spy,” through the Sundance Institute / Sloan Episodic Fellowship. “The Professor and the Spy” is about “Maria Mayer, Columbia University’s ambitious first female physics professor, who joins the Manhattan Project – only to discover that her research partner is a notorious Soviet spy. As Maria cooperates with the FBI to counterspy on her colleague, she must question the ethics of her country, and thus her own moral fiber.” Benjy Steinberg was raised by academics in Northern California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. His work approaches the crime, thriller and horror genres from unconventional angles, such as science, sexuality and religion. Benjy most recently was a staff writer on Season 3 of ABC’s Big Sky.  Previous winners of the Sundance Institute / Sloan Episodic Fellowship include: “Our Dark Lady,” “The Harvard Computers” and “Higher.”
• Cynthia Lowen (writer and director) will receive a $15,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for “Light Mass Energy,” through the Sundance Institute / Sloan Development Fellowship. “Light Mass Energy” is the story of Mileva Marić Einstein, who confronted rampant discrimination to become one of the first women in physics and an essential contributor to the theory of relativity. As barriers to her career overwhelm her, Mileva battles mental illness and her own exclusion from history. Lowen is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and writer. She’s the  director/producer of “Battleground” (STARZ) and “Netizens,” (HBO) and is the producer/writer of “Bully” (Netflix/PBS). Cynthia is also winner of the National Poetry Series for her collection “The Cloud That Contained the Lightning,” about the making of the atomic bomb. Cynthia will also participate in the upcoming Feature Film Program Screenwriters Intensive to further develop her script. Previous winners of the Sundance Institute / Sloan Development Fellowship include: “Moving Bangladesh,” “Chariot” and “Tidal Disruption.”
• John Lopez (writer) will receive a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for “Incompleteness,” through the Sundance Institute / Sloan Commissioning Grant. Adapted from Rebecca Goldstein’s book, “Incompleteness” takes place in the run up to World War II, when logician Kurt Gödel falls in love and discovers two mind-bending proofs that shake mathematics and philosophy to their cores. However, in surviving an era of collapsing reason, Gödel’s own mind soon turns against him with only his wife Adele to sustain him. Lopez started his career covering film and the arts for Grantland, Vanity Fair and Business Week. He was an associate producer on Hossein Amini’s adaptation of “The Two Faces” of January and has written for Paramount +’s “Strange Angel,” Netflix’s “Seven Seconds” and Showtime’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Lopez was also a Writing Fellow at the Institute’s Episodic Lab. Previous winners of the Sundance Institute / Sloan Commissioning Grant include: “The Futurist,” “Pharmacopeia,” “The Plutonians” and “Challenger.”

Prior to the Feature Film Prize reception, audiences and guests were invited to participate in a conversation at the Filmmaker Lodge as part of the Beyond Film programming at the Festival. (See accompanying story).

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