There’s never a shortage of hidden gems in the Sundance Film Festival‘s short film program. (Last year’s lineup even featured former First Daughter Malia Obama’s directorial debut.) A scan of the selections for 2025 revealed one notable project that marks a new big-screen collaboration for a Hollywood couple: Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan and Emmy-nominated Succession star J. Smith-Cameron.
Writer-director Alex Heller’s Debaters is a 10-minute short that will screen this week in Park City, Utah, when Sundance rolls out Jan. 23-Feb. 2. It premieres on day one, Jan. 23, as part of the Short Film Program 1 at Library Center Theatre. The film is set in a debate chamber where affluent high school students argue a bill on minimum wage in an effort to impress two working-class adult judges, played by Lonergan and Smith-Cameron. The judges sit in the back of a class observing the competition before eventually weighing in during an emotional climax as one of the debaters drops an unforgettable line.
Heller is presenting the project as a “proof of concept” for a full-length feature focused on the “cutthroat yet heartwarming” world of congressional debate. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Lonergan and Smith-Cameron are attached to the feature version, which is titled Debate Team. Casting is underway with filmmakers eyeing a late 2025 production start. From Full Spectrum Features, Debate Team is being produced by Eugene Sun Park and Heller with Jason Matsumoto as executive producer.
Debaters marks a reunion for Heller and Smith-Cameron after the veteran actress starred opposite Steve Buscemi in the filmmaker’s debut feature, The Year Between, released in 2022. But the roots run deeper. According to her official director’s statement, Heller counts Lonergan as a mentor. He is best known as a writer and director with credits like You Can Count on Me, Margaret and Manchester by the Sea. He won an Oscar for best original screenplay for the latter.
“During my 20s, I worked as a judge at high school debate tournaments in the Chicago suburbs, tagging along with my dad who was a coach. I became obsessed with congressional debate, partially because I was feeling like a burnout at this point in my life, and was in awe of how brilliant and ambitious the young debaters were,” Heller says in the statement released as part of the press materials. “The tournaments were electric, and I often thought, this is what some people feel when they watch sports, or movies about sports. I’ve known for years that I wanted to make a movie following a congressional debate team and their unhinged judges to a national championship.”
Park also weighed in, saying Chicago-based Full Spectrum is honored to team up once again with Smith-Cameron and Lonergan on the feature version. “Alex Heller’s sophomore feature promises to deliver another dose of her unique brand of tragicomedy,” said Park. “Once again, her eccentric but relatable characters will navigate journeys of self-discovery, inviting audiences to squirm and laugh through those awkward moments that force us to grow up.”
Heller is managed by Emily Rose at Mosaic and repped by Maude Reilly and Halle Mariner at IAG; Smith-Cameron by Lindsay Porter at Gersh and Mark Armstrong and Steve Caserta at Principal Talent.
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