‘The Jinx’ Director Andrew Jarecki’s Latest Documentary ‘The Alabama Solution’ to Debut at Sundance 2025

The 2025 Sundance slate is getting some more star power with two buzzy documentaries: Andrew Jarecki‘s “The Alabama Solution” and Bao Nguyen‘s “The Stringer.”

Both nonfiction features are the latest additions to the Premieres category lineup for the annual festival. With the two documentaries included, the festival totals 88 feature films to screen. Out of the lineup, 96 percent of features are world premieres.

“Adding these two nonfiction features to our robust slate of documentary offerings at the Festival, both told by filmmakers who have been a part of our Sundance community for many years, completes our programming with compelling explorations around justice and truth-telling,” Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival director of programming, said in a press statement.

“The Alabama Solution” is co-directed and co-produced by Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. The film, which makes its world premiere at the festival, centers on incarcerated men who defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems. Jarecki most famously previously helmed “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” (2015), as well as Sundance Grand Jury documentary prize winner “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003) and “Just a Clown” (2004). The Emmy-winning HBO docuseries “The Jinx” was revisited in 2024 with a six-episode continuation titled “Part Two.”

Last month, Andrew’s brother Eugene Jarecki’s Julian Assange documentary “The Six Billion Dollar Man” was pulled from Sundance due to unexpected developments in the story.

‘The Stringer,’ Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Like Jarecki, “Be Water” (2020) and “The Greatest Night in Pop” (2024) director Nguyen also returns to Sundance with “The Stringer,” which is produced by Fiona Turner and Terri Lichstein.

“The Stringer” follows the two-year investigation behind the making of one of the most recognized photographs of the 20th century. The official logline reads that “five decades of secrets are unraveled in the search for justice for a man known only as ‘the stringer.'”

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 23 through February 2 in person in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. All of the competition films and more will be available online from January 30 to February 2 for audiences across the country. Single film tickets for in-person and online screenings go on sale January 16.

For the 88 films screening, a total of 33 countries are represented this year, with 42 percent of directors being first-time feature filmmakers. Nine of the feature films and projects were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs, too.

See the full 2025 Sundance Film Festival lineup here.