London, 09 June 2024 — Picturehouse and the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced tonight that Sundance Film Festival: London’s 2024 Audience Favourite Award is presented to Your Monster, directed, produced and written by Caroline Lindy and produced by Kayla Foster. The cast features Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Meghann Fahy, Edmund Donovan and Kayla Foster.

After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming, monster living in her closet.

Your Monster had its UK premiere at Sundance Film Festival: London following its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A earlier this year. 

Festival-goers voted in the thousands for their favourite films across the four-day event at Picturehouse Central for this Audience Favourite Award.

The festival ran from 6 to 9 June and had a busy line-up featuring 11 exciting feature films; the UK short film programme made up of seven shorts showcasing the best of emerging UK filmmaking talent; the dedicated Industry Talks Programme and Interactive Pitch Panel; plus three thought-provoking public talks featuring top filmmakers and industry experts.

Numerous filmmakers and actors attended the festival to introduce their films and participate in audience Q&As including: writer and director Rich Peppiatt whose Irish-language film, Kneecap opened the festival and was joined by featured rappers DJ Próvaí, Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap alongside cast members, Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Jessica Reynolds and Fionnuala Flaherty. Academy Award^® nominated director Sean Wang and producer Carlos López Estrada closed the festival with Didi (弟弟), acclaimed directors David and Nathan Zellner attended with their film Sasquatch Sunset, Chiwetel Ejiofor introduced his adaptation of Jeff Hobbs’ bestselling and critically acclaimed biography Rob Peace, director Caroline Lindy and producer Kayla Foster attended with their wholly original debut Your Monster with cast members Melissa Barrera and Meghann Fahy, director Shuchi Talati along with actor Preeti Panigrahi and cinematographer Jih-E Peng introduced their film Girls Will Be Girls, winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic and World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting presented to Panigrahi earlier this year and Thea Hvistendahl introduced her chilly, disturbing Handling the Undead from Norway, winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Original Music presented to Peter Raeburn at this year’s Festival.

Documentary filmmakers in attendance included multi-Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist, co-director Maria Bukhonina and producer Tamir Ardon with their documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story and Never Look Away director Lucy Lawless attended the festival with producer Matthew Metcalfe.

The short film programme dedicated to UK productions consisted of seven titles and filmmakers in attendance included Xenia Glen for Alo, Yero Timi-Biu for Essex Girls, Tom Stuart for Good Boy, Aephie Chen for Mamu, Mario Radev for [S], Tajana Tokyo for Salone Love and Renee Zhan for Shé (Snake).

Furthermore, as a celebration of the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 showcased highlights of features and shorts presented over the years at the festival, including the acclaimed feature films Under the Skin and Kinky Boots, and short films from directors including Riz Ahmed for Daytimer, Romola Garai for Scrubber, Kibwe Tavares for Robots of Brixton, Stephen and Timothy Quay for Streets of Crocodiles, and Joseph Pelling, Becky Sloan and Baker Terry for their short Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. Saltburn director Emerald Fennell  discussed her short film Careful How You Go with festival audiences.

This year’s Keynote Speech was delivered by Academy Award^® nominated director and producer, Carlos López Estrada (Raya and the Last Dragon, Blindspotting). More industry speakers included BFI London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson; Anna Higgs from Casarotto Ramsay & Associates; Louisa Dent from Curzon; Franki Goodwin from Saatchi & Saatchi; Alex Walton from WME; Kate Gardiner from Searchlight Pictures; Jonathan Lynch-Staunton from Rocket Science; Andrew Orr from Sky Cinema; Karina Gechtman from Anton Corp; Katie Ellen from Hanway; Mathilde Henrot from Festival Scope; Meg Thomson from Globalgate Entertainment; Danny Perkins from Elysian Film; and filmmakers including Prano Bailey Bond, Sally El Hosaini and Peter Ettedgui.

Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 is supported by: Lead Partner Chase®.

For the first time, Chase® partnered with Sundance Film Festival: London as a Lead Sponsor of the Festival. This builds on Chase Sapphire’s 14-year support of the Sundance Film Festival, held annually in Utah. Chase is offering its customers special perks connected to Sundance Film Festival: London.

Media partners are Screen International and Little White Lies.

Industry partners are BBC Film, BFI, BFI NETWORK, BIFA, Film4, Lee & Thompson, London Film Academy, Nowness and Saatchi & Saatchi.

About Sundance Institute

As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from Sundance advisors and connect with each other in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Through the Sundance Institute artist programs, we have supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don’t Cry, Boys State, Call Me by Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Drunktown’s Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Fruitvale Station, Get Out, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, Honeyland, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny, Navalny, O.J.: Made in America, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, RBG, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, The Souvenir, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, Sydney, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Walking and Talking, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola. Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of such artists as Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, The Daniels, David Gordon Green, Miranda July, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Boots Riley, Ira Sachs, Quentin Tarantino, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao. Support Sundance Institute in our commitment to uplifting bold artists and powerful storytelling globally by making a donation at sundance.org/donate. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube.

About Picturehouse Cinemas

Picturehouse is an award-winning UK film company incorporating cinema, distribution and home entertainment, formed in 1989 to challenge the multiplex model. Its flagship cinema Picturehouse Central is situated in the heart of London’s West End, with the rest of its 25 venues located across England and Scotland.

Picturehouse’s architecturally-unique cinemas sit in the heart of local neighbourhoods and cater to a diverse and wide-ranging audience. They provide bespoke food and drink offerings across their cafés, bars, restaurants and members bars. The programme is curated to champion films made for all ages, backgrounds and walks of life, from quality mainstream film through to foreign-language and documentary features, as well as live event cinema. 35mm and 70mm presentations are also offered in some locations.