Everything is set for the 2023 edition of the annual Sundance Film Festival as the non-profit Sundance Institute has announced that this edition will be held as a hybrid festival in Park City, Salt Lake City, Utah, from January 19 to 29, 2023. Festival Director, Tabitha Jackson, said to gather can not wait to return to the home of the festival – Park City for the presentation of exciting works from around the world live and in people.
According to Jackson: “We also have two years of digital exhibition and participation under our collective belt, and return to the excitement and immediacy of live events while retaining a strong online offering.”
The program in 2023, including major films, short films, episodic works and the complete New Frontier program, will be bigger than what was shown digitally in the last two years.
Pass and package information for online and in-person participation will be shared closer to the Festival, as well as guidance on health safety and vaccinations.
The past two Festivals have seen audiences come together online to experience new independent stories when screened on the Festival’s exclusive digital platform, including award-winning and nominated films from the 2021 edition as CODA, Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Can’t Be Shown), Mass, Run, and Through, etc., and reach a wider and more accessible audience than past private Festivals.
A film by Nigerian filmmaker, CJ Obasi, titled, Mami Water, is on the festival’s official selection list. The film featuring talented actors such as Kelechi Udegbe, Rita Edochie, Evelyne Ily and Uzoamaka Aniunoh will be screened in the world at a festival considered one of the five top film festivals in the world (Berlinale, Cannes, Toronto and Venice). Produced by Oge Obasi, Mami Water will compete with 11 other films in the dramatic competition section of world cinema.
This will be the third time since 2018 that a film by a Nigerian-born director will be screened at Sundance.
In 2021, Lizard, a short film by Akinola Davies Jr, and his brother Wale, won the prestigious short film Grand Jury Award, while Nigerian-born but US-born filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu was awarded the Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize for his film, Clemency, in in 2018, making her the first black woman to win the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
The 2023 Sundance film festival ends on January 29, 2023.