Black At Sundance: 8 Films To Lookout For At The 2025 Festival

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These Black-led feature films and projects are set to make their major debut.

December 11, 2024 12:00pm

The Sundance Film Festival is set to return at the top of the year and will boast 93 projects ranging from music documentaries to enchanting romantic stories. Announced on Wednesday (Dec. 11), the nonprofit Sundance Institute revealed the titles of 87 feature films and six episodic projects that made the cut for the 2025 event.

“As we are looking at films, evaluating each one individually, what is it saying? What is it doing? How well is it achieving? What is it setting out to do?” Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming Kim Yutani told VIBE on a Zoom call ahead of the lineup announcement. “We are also looking for films that speak with a kind of authenticity, that are innovative, that are telling us stories that maybe we haven’t seen before on screen, or if we have, they are approaching them with another new, fresh angle or a new depth.”

She added, “I think that we’re really attracted to films that we know are going to create conversation. I think that’s one of the functions of a film festival like Sundance: have artists presenting their work to audiences, challenging audiences, creating conversation through their work, and fostering healthy debate. I think that’s all part of the festival experience.”

“It’s all in service of this broader mission of the organization or mission of both the organization and the festival,” added Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Head Of Public Programming, Eugene Hernandez. “And this is the moment where, each year, we see that admission underscored so boldly, this notion of being that place of international discovery.

“Spending the better part of a year to shape, to find, and then shape the program that we get to now reveal to you, comes with so much time and effort in aiming to underscore and support that exact mission of discovery. And so that’s the extension of all the work.”

Some of the revealed titles include a new documentary on Sly Stone by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the directorial debut of Mark Anthony Green starring Ayo Edebiri, and a deep dive into the origins of house music in Chicago by Elegance Bratton.

“The richness of the subject matters that we’re sharing with you or the people behind the cameras telling those stories, whether it’s in gender expressions, cultural and ethnic backgrounds,” explained Hernandez. “And from around the world, three films from the continent of Africa. [We] have a film from Macedonia. [We] have such a rich program. And that’s what to me is most exciting about what Sundance does, is unique about Sundance.”

The Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 23–February 2, 2025, in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. For virtual audiences, all of the competition films and more will be available online from January 30–February 2, 2025. Packages and passes are available now and single tickets will be available beginning January 16 on the official website.

Check out VIBE’s rundown of the 8 Black-led films to catch at Sundance and read the full list of programming here.

‘Ricky’

Image Credit: Sam Motame

Category: U.S. Dramatic Competition

Production: Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Rashad Frett; Screenwriter: Lin Que Ayoung; Producers: Pierre M. Coleman, Simon TaufiQue, Sterling Brim, Josh Peters, DC Wade, Cary Fukunaga

Synopsis: After being locked up in his teens, a newly released 30-year-old Ricky navigates the challenging realities of life post-incarceration and the complexity of gaining independence for the first time as an adult.

Cast: Stephan James, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Titus Welliver, Maliq Johnson, Imani Lewis, Andrene Ward-Hammond.
‘Love, Brooklyn’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute

Category: U.S. Dramatic Competition

Production: Director: Rachael Abigail Holder; Screenwriter: Paul Zimmerman; Producers: André Holland, Kate Sharp, Patrick Wengler, Maurice Anderson, Liza Zusman

Synopsis: Three longtime Brooklynites navigate careers, love, loss, and friendship against the rapidly changing landscape of their beloved city.

Cast: André Holland, Nicole Beharie, DeWanda Wise, Roy Wood Jr., Cassandra Freeman, Cadence Reese.
‘BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions’

Image Credit: Jac Martinez / BLKNWS™

Category: World Cinema Documentary Competition

Production: Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Kahlil Joseph; Screenwriters: Saidiya Hartman, Irvin Hunt; Producers: Onye Anyanwu, Amy Greenleaf, Nic Gonda

Synopsis: Preeminent West African curator and scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu’s magnum opus, The Resonance Field, leads her to the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, drawing a journalist into a journey that shatters her understanding of consciousness and time.

Cast: Shaunette Renée Wilson, Kaneza Schaal, Hope Giselle, Peter Hernandez, Penny Johnson Jerald, Zora Casebere.
‘SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute/Stephen Paley

Category: Premieres

Production: Director: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson; Producers: Joseph Patel, Derik Murray

Synopsis: An examination of the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone — the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone — captures the band’s rise, reign, and subsequent fadeout while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.
‘Move Ya Body: The Birth of House’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute/Vince Lawrence

Category: Premieres

Synopsis: Out of the underground dance clubs on the South Side of Chicago, a group of friends turn a new sound into a global movement.

Production: Director and Screenwriter: Elegance Bratton, Producer: Chester Algernal Gordon)
‘Seeds’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute/Brittany Shyne

Category: U.S. Documentary Competition

Production: Director and Producer: Brittany Shyne; Producer: Danielle Varga

Synopsis: An exploration of Black generational farmers in the American South reveals the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.
‘Khartoum’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute/Native Voice Films

Category: World Documentary Competition

Production: Directors: Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Phil Cox; Screenwriter: Phil Cox, Producers: Giovanna Stopponi, Talal Afifi

Synopsis: Forced to leave Sudan for East Africa following the outbreak of war, five citizens of Khartoum — a civil servant, a tea lady, a resistance committee volunteer, and two young bottle collectors — reenact their stories of survival and freedom through dreams, revolution, and civil war.
‘Opus’

Image Credit: Sundance Institute/A24

Category: Midnight

Production: Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Mark Anthony Green; Producers: Collin Creighton, Brad Weston, Poppy Hanks, Jelani Johnson, Josh Bachove)

Synopsis: A young writer is invited to the remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago. Surrounded by the star’s cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan.

Cast: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder.