Rashad Frett shares a moment with Michelle Satter at the 2023 Directors Lab. Photographer: Jonathan Hickerson
By the Archives team
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will be here before we know it, and we, the archives team, are thrilled to delve into the program, which features a bevy of newcomers along with filmmaking and acting veterans. We’ve taken the opportunity to highlight a handful of returners supported by Sundance Institute throughout the years, whether at the Festival, the labs, through grants, and beyond. Take a look back at some of their previous accomplishments before checking out their new projects on the mountain or in the comfort of your own home.
Director Rashad Frett (pictured above) will make his return to the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition this year, debuting a feature version of his short film Ricky, which screened at the Festival in 2023. Frett workshopped the film at both the 2023 Directors and Screenwriters Labs, and it was also supported at that year’s Producers Lab. Starring Stephan James and Sheryl Lee Ralph, Ricky tells the powerful story of a man navigating life post-incarceration.
Partners Alison Brie and Dave Franco are no strangers to the Sundance Film Festival. Over the years, they have been featured in various Festival films. Brie is well known for her roles in Sleeping With Other People, Promising Young Woman, and Horse Girl, which she also wrote and produced. Meanwhile, Franco served as a producer on Zola and acted in Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding. In 2017 the duo combined forces in the dark medieval comedy The Little Hours. At the 2025 Festival they can be seen in the Michael Shanks-directed horror movie Together, and Franco will pull double duty, appearing in the eccentric Bubble & Squeak.
Director Cherien Dabis will be back at the Sundance Film Festival with the premiere of her third feature, All That’s Left of You – a film that she also wrote, produced, and acted in. The film documents the lives of a Palestinian family over three generations. Some of Dabis’s other Sundance-supported films include Amreeka, which played the 2009 Festival, 2013’s May in the Summer, and the 2007 short Make a Wish. Dabis was also a short film competition juror at the 2018 Festival and has served as a creative advisor at various Sundance labs over the years, including the 2011 Rawi Middle East Screenwriters Lab in Jordan, the 2020 Native Filmmakers Lab, and the 2023 June Screenwriters Lab.
Diego Luna will return to Sundance in the movie musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring alongside Jennifer Lopez. Diego Luna made his Sundance debut in the film Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2002. After appearing in several films at the Festival, he went on to direct, produce, and write the film Mr. Pig, which premiered at the 2016 Festival. Diego has also been involved with Sundance in other capacities, including being a Festival Juror for the Dramatic Competition in 2008, and being an Alumni Advisory Board Member in 2012.
Andrew Ahn started his film career with Sundance with his short Dol (First Birthday) which premiered at the 2012 Festival. Since then, he’s been involved with the Institute in a number of ways, including being a fellow at the 2013 Screenwriters Intensive, and going on to be a Creative Advisor at the Screenwriters Intensive (2016, 2018, 2021, & 2022) and at the Native Lab (2017 & 2023). He was also a Mentor at the Sundance Ignite Adobe Fellowship from 2019-2021. Andrew premiered his first feature film Spa Night at the 2016 Festival. He’ll be returning to the Festival in 2025 with his film The Wedding Banquet, a remake of the 1993 film of the same name, starring Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and Bowen Yang.
Chloë Sevigny stars in not one, but two films premiering at the 2025 Festival: Atropia directed by Hailey Gates, a part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition, and Magic Farm directed by Amalia Ulman, in the Premieres section. Chloë has acted in a number of films which have screened at Sundance, including Kids (1995), Party Monster (2003), Love & Friendship (2016), and Golden Exits (2017). She took on a producer role, in addition to acting, for the film Lizzie, which premiered at the 2018 Festival.
Meera Menon will premiere Didn’t Die in the Midnight section at the Festival in January. Menon first attended the Festival back in 2016 with Equity, which went on to screen at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong. In 2018, Menon workshopped her project Sugar Land at the Episodic Lab and was a Sundance ReFrame Rise director in 2019.
Audiences will see the return of Willem Dafoe at the Festival in January, with Isaiah Saxon’s The Legend of Ochi. Dafoe has starred in many Festival films over the years, including two Paul Schrader films, Light Sleeper in 1992 and Affliction in 1998, Steve Buscemi’s 2000 film, Animal Factory, Luis Fernandez de la Reguera’s Rockets Redglare! in 2003, and the following year in 2004 Pieter Jan Brugge’s The Clearing (a work in progres). Ten years later, he attended the Festival for Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man and in 2020, he was back in Park City for the premiere of Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted.
Gerardo Coello Escalante is set to premiere his new short SUSANA in Park City in January and just last year he attended the 2024 Festival and Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 with his short film Viaje de Negocios. Coello Escalante is a 2018 Sundance Ignite fellow and workshopped his project Forgive Us Sinners at the 2018 Creative Producing Summit and 2019 Screenwriters Intensive.
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