Sundance Film Festival: catapulting acting careers
The Sundance Film Festival has brought remarkable opportunities to aspiring filmmakers and actors, ready to make their mark on the world. Every year the Sundance Institute hosts the festival in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2025, it occurred in person from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2, and online from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2. This year out of 15,775 total film submissions and 484 episodic submissions, the festival debuted 88 feature films and six episodic projects, both fiction and nonfiction, each film inspiringly unique.
The 2025 U.S. Grand Jury Prizes, the most esteemed prizes of the festival, went to the films “Atropia” and “Seeds.”
The dark satire film “Atropia,” winning the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, follows an aspiring actress (Alia Shawkat) living in a military role-playing establishment, who takes on acting parts as different Iraqi women. Through her film, the creator Hailey Gates makes powerful statements about the notion of war.
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to “Seeds.” The black and white film by Brittany Shyne, “Seeds”, explores the community of black farmers living in the American South. It delves into the generational decline of these farmers' acreage and the importance to them of owning land. But even more notably, Shyne portrays their daily routines and rhythms, highlighting the peaceful moments of their lives that are so often overlooked.
Rotten Tomatoes /Contributor
Sundance bestows a multitude of awards, but the exposure alone from having a film featured in the festival can completely catapult careers. The film, “Good One”, debuted at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by India Donaldson, “Good One” unpacks the deep and diverse emotions of 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias ’23). On an uncomfortable backpacking trip in the Catskill Mountains, Sam struggles to combat difficult relationships with her father, and his longtime friend.
“Good One” was entered in the U.S. Dramatic competition category and, although it did not win any awards, it skyrocketed Collias’s career. Collias, a Samo alum, booked the role of Sam while still at Samo, and began to film just weeks after she graduated. After starring in “Good One”, which went on to win prizes in competitions such as the Independent Film Festival Boston and the Champs-Élysées Film Festival, she made an impressive appearance in Teen Vogue.
Collias is now set to star in the A24 film, “Altar”, which is scheduled to release in 2025. Little details about the horror film have been released, but fans are eagerly waiting for its premiere and Collias’s highly anticipated future films.