According to Women at Sundance, “Women make up 50.8% of the U.S. population, but only 4.2% of the 100 top-grossing American films are made by female directors.” While it’s no secret that the film industry is a man’s world, that statistic hasn’t changed much over the last decade. The Sundance Institute, however, has continually offered unprecedented support to female filmmakers. This year, female directors made up 29% of the 2020 Sundance features. Because of this high percentage, women’s stories were told like never before.
Women-led films that dominated this year
This year, Lana Wilson gave her audience a backstage pass to the life of one of the most powerful women in modern media through Miss Americana, a Netflix film following pop-star Taylor Swift. Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead serves as a eulogy for a dying man, a documentary giving insight to family life as a father struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut Promising Young Woman made audiences laugh and scream during her dark comedy thriller centered around trauma, rape culture, and revenge.
Allison Ellwood’s The Go-Go’s provides a sentimental narrative of the first female self-made band that played their own instruments, wrote their own songs, and hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Eliza Hittman’s debut film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, follows Autumn, a teenager who has to travel from rural, conservative Pennsylvania to New York City to gain access to an abortion. Radha Blank brought The 40-Year-Old Version to the festival, a black-and-white 35-millimeter emotional comedy addressing lost dreams in New York City.
Josephine Decker’s film Shirley, which features Elisabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson, is a psycho drama centered around Jackson finding the inspiration for her next novel through a dark artistic process. Kitty Green’s The Assistant is the #MeToo film of Sundance, following recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, Jane, who learns her dream job as a junior assistant isn’t all it seemed to be as she learns of the abuse occurring in her work place. Kim Snyder follows the survivors of the 2018 Parkland highschool shooting as they set off on an attempt to change votes when it comes to gun control, highlighting face of the movement and badass Emma Gonzales.
Based on the book of the same name, Liz Garbus’ Lost Girls is the story of a mother desperately searching for her missing daughter, eventually uncovering multiple unsolved murders committed by the Long Island Serial Killer. Nanette Burstein’s four-hour documentary series Hillary shines a light on one of the most beloved and simultaneously hated women in American history, Hillary Rodham Clinton, providing an intimate memoir of the former first lady, senator, secretary of state, and presidential nominee.
Shane Feste’s Run Sweetheart Run follows a date from hell — literally — and shows women they can take back their power, even when they’ve hit rock bottom. Zola, directed by Janicza Bravo, is a film based on a Twitter thread gone viral, following stripper Zola on a cross-country road trip quest to make as much money as possible in Florida strip clubs. The Gloria’s, directed by Julie Taymor, presents a portrait of Gloria Steinem, highlighting the feminist at different life stages as she fights for LGBT, reproductive and workplace equality rights.
The festival also made a major announcement as it wrapped up it’s awards ceremony: Tabitha Jackson will be the first female and POC festival director of the Sundance Film Festival. Jackson will be taking over for John Cooper, who has held the position since 2009.