Just as last year, over 60 films are coming into this year’s Sundance Film Festival looking for homes. But after a slow 2023, 2024 proved to be a strong year for independent film, with some unexpected buyers getting involved, Netflix getting aggressive and spending one of the largest amounts in Sundance history, and the overall health of the market moving at a good pace. This year suggests even more distributors could get creative.
Below we’ll update all the acquisitions out of the festival as they arrive. Here are the movies we think could sell big.
“The Reality of Hope”
Section: Documentary Short Film Program
Buyer: Asteria and Documentary+
Director: Joe Hunting
Buzz: Ahead of its premiere on Saturday, Jan. 25, AI animation studio Asteria and the documentary free streaming platform Documentary+ swooped in to acquire this doc short that blends VR and live action filmmaking. The film follows Hiyu, a virtual reality world builder based in Stockholm who is suffering from kidney failure and is set to get a transplant from a friend, New York-based Photographotter, who he knows only through an online VR community where they’re each seen as an animal “furry” avatar. Doc+ will release the film later this year on its AVOD platform and through its various FAST channels. Asteria’s Bryn Mooser and Justin Lacob are joining the project as executive producers.
“One to One: John and Yoko”
Section: Spotlight
Buyer: Magnolia
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Buzz: First premiering at the Venice Film Festival and then at Telluride, Magnolia bought “One to One” just ahead of its Sundance screening and made a splash to give it an IMAX exclusive release on April 11, the first time Magnolia has partnered with IMAX on a release. It will then land on Max and HBO in late 2025. The film follows the 18 months that John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, including restored footage from the only full concert Lennon performed after breaking up from The Beatles, the One to One Madison Square Garden benefit concert. The film has an audio restoration as overseen by Sean Lennon Ono.
Films Arriving with Distribution
“2000 Meters to Andriivka”
Section: World Documentary
Distributor: Frontline/Associated Press
Director: Mstyslav Chernov
Buzz: The director of “20 Days in Mariupol” returns with a film in which he embeds himself with a Ukrainian platoon slowly realizing that the Russian campaign may be seemingly endless.
“The Alabama Solution”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: HBO Documentary Films
Director: Andrew Jarecki
Buzz: The “Capturing the Friedmans” director examines a cover-up within one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
“The Ballad of Wallis Island”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Focus Features
Director: James Griffiths
Cast: Tom Basden, Carey Mulligan, Tim Key, Sian Clifford, Akemnji Ndifornyen
Buzz: Basden and Key are longtime comedy partners reuniting with a sweet, tuneful film about a lottery winner who gets one of his old favorite duos to reunite for a private concert.
“Deaf President Now!”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Apple Studios
Director: Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim
Buzz: The “Deaf U” producer teams with the “Still” director for a story about the 1988 protest at Deaf college Gallaudet University.
“Enigma”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: HBO Documentary Films
Director: Zackary Drucker
Buzz: The director of “The Stroll” returns to Sundance with this profile of model Amanda Lear and April Ashley, the woman who claimed Lear worked with her in Parisian transgender revues in the ’50s.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: A24
Director: Mary Bronstein
Cast: Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Conan O’Brien, Danielle McDonald
Buzz: The director of “Yeast” makes her sophomore feature with this darkly comedic, uncomfortably funny film about a woman’s hostile relationship with her therapist.
“The Legend of Ochi”
Section: Family Matinee
Distributor: A24
Director: Isaiah Saxon
Cast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe,
Buzz: This A24 family fantasy adventure film uses elaborate and meticulously crafted puppetry and paintings (not AI!) to tell an environmental parable.
“Magic Farm”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: MUBI
Director: Amalia Ullman
Cast: Chloe Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Simon Rex
Buzz: The director of “El Planeta” returns to Sundance with this English-language satire about media a film crew that travels to Argentina for a profile, only to wind up in the wrong country.
“Opus”
Section: Midnight
Distributor: A24
Director: Mark Anthony Green
Cast: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder
Buzz: Mark Anthony Green’s debut feature is a horror film about a young journalist invited to visit a compound of a pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years earlier.
“Sally”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Nat Geo
Director: Cristina Costantini
Buzz: The director of “Mucho Mucho Amor” and “Science Fair directs this profile of Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut to make it to space, and her secret romance.
“Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Onyx Collective
Director: Questlove
Buzz: Four years after Questlove had a record-breaking Sundance sale for a documentary, Questlove is back with a documentary about Sly and the Family Stone leader Sly Stone.
“The Wedding Banquet”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Bleecker Street
Director: Andrew Ahn
Cast: Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran
Buzz: The “Fire Island” filmmaker’s latest film is a comedy about a man who exchanges a green card marriage for an expensive IVF procedure, only to be surprised with an elaborate Korean wedding ceremony.
