About The Sundance Film Festival- sundance.org (2024)

Eugene Hernandez, Festival Director and head of public programming

Adam Montgomery, Senior Manager, Programming Dept. & Programmer

Adam started at Sundance in 2005 as Manager of Programming, overseeing the selection process for nearly 14,000 film, episodic, and VR submissions that the Festival receives annually. Additionally, he lends his passion for cult and genre filmmaking to the programming of the Festival’s Midnight section, electing to spend the majority of his nights engrossed in all varieties of horror, thrillers, and off-color comedies. Adam also uses his past experience in television development to programming the Festival’s newest program, Indie Episodic. Prior to joining the Institute, he spent five years at Imagine Entertainment, where he worked on shows such as Arrested Development and 24. He is a firm believer that filmmakers are under no obligation to stick to any previously-established rules with regards to zombies, vampires, werewolves or Frankenstein.

Katie Metcalfe, Short Film Programmer

Katie has been a Shorts Programmer at Sundance since 2010 and previously worked in short film distribution for Future Shorts and event production for Vimeo and Punchdrunk in New York. She is currently Video Commissioner for global video platform NOWNESS in London, commissioning editorial films and also overseeing short form content for fashion, design, tech & culture brands.

Stephanie Owens, Associate Programmer

Stephanie Owens is new to the Sundance programming team. She started screening for the festival in 2016. She is also a programmer for the LA Film Festival, and has worked with POV, Palm Springs International ShortFest and WIF. She loves films, and documentaries especially. In fact, when she’s not watching documentaries for festivals, she’s chipping away at her first feature documentary project. Owens earned her BA in Studio Art from the University of Virginia and MFA in Art and Film/ Video from CalArts.

Mike Plante, Senior Programmer, Short Film

Mike Plante is currently a senior programmer for short film at the Sundance Film Festival, where he has worked since 2001. He has worked as a film programmer and projectionist since 1993, and he helped run CineVegas from 2002 to 2009. Plante also makes short and feature documentaries, includingBe Like An Ant(2011),Giuseppe Makes a Movie(2014) andThe Polaroid Job(2016), and We Were There to Be There (2021).

Ana Souza, Programmer and Manager, Programming Department

Born in Brazil, Ana Souza was partially raised in Amsterdam. She holds a B.A. from the University of Warwick, England and an M.A. from the University of Southern California. She joined Sundance initially as the assistant to the Director of Programming under Trevor Groth. In addition to her work supporting the Programming department at Sundance, she has programmed for AFI FEST and the LA Film Festival. She has also worked in various capacities for the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Outfest, Ambulante California, and NALIP’s Latino Media Fest, among others. She has been a programming fellow for Film Independent’s Project Involve and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Industry Academy.

Dilcia Barrera, Programmer

Dilcia Barrera is a Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival where she focuses on feature length fiction films, series, and panels and conversations. For over a decade, Dilcia has worked for film festivals including a tenure as Programming Director for LALIFF, Senior Programmer at AFI FEST, and has collaborated with programming teams at OUTFEST and the New York Film Festival. Most recently, she was LACMA’s Film Curator overseeing public programming, and screenings in conjunction with the museum’s exhibitions including Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters. She was featured in “IndieWire’s 20 Latin Americans Making a Difference for American Independent Film Today” in 2016 and ScreenDaily’s “Future Leaders 2019: programmers and curators to watch” list.

Ania Trzebiatowska, Programmer

Ania Trzebiatowska is a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on US and World documentary features. Prior to joining Sundance she was the Sales & Acquisitions Executive for the doc sales agency, Autlook Filmsales, as well as Senior Director of Acquisitions at the NYC-based agency, Visit Films. Aside from her work at Sundance, Ania runs Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews, (Scotland) and was the artistic director of Off Camera IFF (Krakow, Poland) between 2008-2020. She trained in production and post-production at the BBC and the British Museum, and holds a Master’s degree in film studies, as well as a Master’s in Digital Culture and Technology from King’s College, London.

Sudeep Sharma, Programmer

Sudeep is a Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival focusing on documentary feature films. Having started at Sundance in 2008 as a screener of international documentary features for the festival and a reader for the labs, he has previously been an Associate Programmer, Documentaries and Shorts Programmer. He is also Director of Programming for the Palm Springs International ShortFest where he has programmed since 2014. He has also worked in programming at many festivals including the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Aspen ShortsFest, LA Film Festival, AFI Fest, Tribeca, Indian Kaleidoscope Film Festival and was Director of Public Programming for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. A native of New Jersey, Sudeep has a BA in English from George Washington University, MA and Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA. He has taught film and television history, industry and criticism courses at universities throughout Southern California.

Adam Piron, Short Film Programmer

Adam Piron (Kiowa & Mohawk) is a member of the Sundance Film Festival’s Short Film programming team and is the assistant curator for film at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He has also programmed films for AFI Fest and Film Independent’s LA Film Festival. From 2014 to 2017, he served as a Manager for Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Film Program.

Heidi Zwicker, Senior Programmer

Heidi Zwicker is a Senior Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on international and U.S. Narrative Feature Films, Midnight and Shorts. She has been contributing to various Sundance Institute programs for over ten years, beginning with the Feature Film Program, International. Heidi was a Programmer at Palm Springs International Shortfest from 2011-2014 and also programs at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Originally from the north shore of Boston, she has a degree in English from University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth and an M.A. in Critical Studies of Film and Television from UCLA.

Basil Tsiokos - Senior Programmer

Charlie Sextro, Senior Programmer

Charlie started working with the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 as the assistant to the Director of Programming, and has programed feature-length films for the past six years. He also led programming of film, music and comedy at Sundance NEXT Fest. Prior to Sundance, Charlie worked in publicity at Entertainment Tonight, marketing at Tartan Films U.S.A, acquisitions at Paramount Vantage and his mom’s picture frame gallery. He moved to Southern California in 2001 from Dallas, TX to study film & television at the University of Southern California and Chapman University.

John Nein, Senior Programmer and Director of Strategic Initatives

John Nein is Senior Programmer and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Sundance Film Festival where he has worked since 2001, dealing primarily with feature films and the festival’s conversation events. He also curates Sundance Institute’s film preservation initiative, the Sundance Collection at UCLA. John grew up in Europe and the United States, studied history as an undergraduate at Carleton College and earned his MFA in Film Directing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. He created and curates the Library Foundation of Los Angeles’ popular film culture conversation series Lost & Found at the Movies at the downtown Central Library and also serves as the consultant for American cinema at the Locarno Film Festival.

Shari Frilot, Senior Programmer, Chief Curator of New Frontier

Shari’s focus in the Sundance film program is American and World Cinema dramatic features, as well as films that experiment and push the boundaries of conventional storytelling. She is the founder and driving creative force behind New Frontier at Sundance. She served as co-Director of Programming for OUTFEST (1998-2001), where she founded the Platinum section, which introduced cinematic installation and performance to the festival. As Festival Director for MIX: The New York Experimental Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (1993-1996) she co-founded the first gay Latin American film festivals, MIX BRASIL and MIX MÉXICO. Under her direction, New Frontier garnered a Webby, multiple Emmy awards, and featured the prototype for the Oculus Rift VR headset. She is a graduate of Harvard/Radcliffe & the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Shari is a filmmaker and recipient of multiple awards and grants, including the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Media Arts Foundation. She joined the programming team in 1998.

Kim Yutani, Director of Programming

Kim Yutani began programming short films at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006. In 2009, she became a feature film programmer, focusing on US and international fiction feature films, overseeing short film programming, and working on the Festival’s Offscreen series of panels and conversations. She was instrumental in the creation of Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong, which she also programs. During her tenure at the Institute, she has represented Sundance internationally by serving on juries, speaking on panels, and working to cultivate relationships with film commissions, industry, and artists around the world. For the past five years, she has also overseen a new collaboration with the Berlinale’s European Film Market – housed within the Sundance Film Festival at EFM program – which has provided exposure and sales opportunities for Sundance films, immediately after premiering at the Festival. She started her programming career at Outfest Los Angeles, one of the world’s leading LGBT festivals, where she was the Artistic Director and the Director of Programming. She is currently a programming consultant for the Provincetown International Film Festival. She has been a reader for Creative Capital and is on the short film nominating committee for Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking. Prior to her film festival work, Yutani was a film critic and freelance journalist focusing on independent film. She got her start in the industry as director Gregg Araki’s assistant. She was recently named an A100 Honoree on Gold House’s list of the most influential Asian Americans in culture.

John Cooper - Emeritus Director

Lisa Ogdie, Short Film Programmer

Lisa Ogdie is a Shorts Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival and also North America Cinema Programmer for Soho House & Co. She has been part of the Sundance shorts programming team since 2009, selecting the Sundance short film slate from over 10,000 submissions, and has moderated Q&A discussions and panels for BAFTA Los Angeles, Sundance, Toronto Film Festival and the American Pavilion at Cannes.

Landon Zakheim, Short Film Programmer

Landon Zakheim is a short film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, an interactive curator & short film programmer for the Denver Film Society, an associate programmer for narrative films and immersive projects at the Tribeca Film Festival, and the co-founder and co-director of the Overlook Film Film Festival, a four day celebration of all things horror held annually in New Orleans. Among a myriad of additional festival organizations for which he’s worked, he has been a core programmer for AFI Fest and the Philadelphia Film Festival, and he was formerly both director of programming for Aspen ShortsFest and head of shorts for the now-defunct LA Film Festival.

Stephanie Owens, Programmer

Stephanie Owens is a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on documentary features and New Frontier. She has also programmed for Palm Springs ShortFest, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, LA Film Festival, IDA’s Getting Real Conference, and has also contributed to festival and funding juries. As director of the Center for Documentary’s DocX initiative at Duke University, she launched the interdisciplinary DocX Archive Lab Fellowship for BIPOC documentary artists. Owens strives to cultivate spaces that encourage and uplift artists developing their own language to tell stories and push the boundaries of form. She holds an MFA from CalArts in Art and Film/Video.

NEXT Jury

Amanda Salazar, Short Film Programmer

Amanda Salazar is a Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. She has film festival programming, theatrical booking, and digital distribution experience. In addition to her work at Sundance, she is the Co-Director of Camera Obscura, a pop-up cinema that celebrates “unique, antique, and experimental film” in the Bay Area. Her previous experience includes Head of Programming and Acquisitions at Argo, VP of Acquisitions at Fandor, the Cinema Booker at the Northwest Film Forum, and Programmer at SFFILM.

Saidah Russell, Short Film Programmer

Saidah Russell is a new member of the Sundance Film Festival’s short film programming team. She has experience working on screening committees for several festivals, including Sundance, Tribeca Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, and Nantucket Film Festival. She has also been on review committees for AT&T Presents: Untold stories, Athena Film Festival’s Writers Lab, Creative Capital, Black Public Media’s Open Call, and the HamptonsFilm Screenwriters Lab. She is the Director of Programming for the TIDE Film Festival, an emerging Brooklyn-based festival dedicated to showcasing work by filmmakers of color.

Irene Suico Soriano, Short Film Programmer

Irene Suico Soriano has curated community-centered Filipinx and AAPI film programs in Los Angeles since 1999. She was part of the inaugural cohort of Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC FF’s 2022 Film Programming Fellows Program (In partnership with the Programmers of Colour Collective). Irene was also Project Involve’s first Fellow in 2003 to initiate a Film Programming track, a Film Independent (then IFP-LA) program that has since graduated four other Sundance film programmers. She has served on screening committees for the LA Film Festival, Outfest LA, Outfest Fusion FF, and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific FF. An immigrant transplant to LA from the Philippines, Irene spends her spare time rewatching 1990s Asian arthouse films and diving further into nostalgia by listening to 1980s post-punk anthems and studying Philippine Cinema’s 1970s “second golden age” greatest hits.

Emily Doe, Short Film Programmer

Emily Doe has been a Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival since 2010. Prior to Sundance, Emily worked in short film acquisitions and distribution at Wholphin, a DVD magazine from McSweeney’s. She’s also worked for the San Francisco International Film Festival and Aspen ShortsFest. Emily is originally from Massachusetts, she studied Film & Literature at Kenyon College in Ohio, and now lives in the Bay Area with her family.

Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Jury

Shorts Competition Jury

World Cinema Documentary Competition Jury

DaManuel Richardson, Short Film Programmer

DaManuel Richardson is a writer, producer, and programmer born and raised near Atlanta, Georgia. He was lured to Hollywood in 2013 to study filmmaking at California Institute of the Arts and subsequently worked as a coordinator for the Director of Sundance Film Festival. In 2018 DaManuel became the newest member of the Sundance short film programming team. He also serves on the selection committee for Sundance Catalyst and the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. He currently works in television as a showrunner’s assistant while still finding time for indie producing on the side. In his spare time, DaManuel enjoys working in his community garden in Los Angeles.

World Cinema Dramatic Competition Jury

U.S. Dramatic Competition Jury

2023 Sundance Film Festival Jurors for the U.S. Dramatic Competition are Jeremy O. Harris, Eliza Hittman, and Marlee Matlin.

U.S. Documentary Competition Jury

2021 Shorts Awards Winners, Presented by Southwest Airlines

Awards​

Evá Williams, Associate Short Film Programmer

Evá Williams is a member of the Sundance Film Festival’s short film programming team. This year is her first rodeo, but she’s been an active member of screening committees for the Sundance, Hamptons, Montclair, TIDE, HollyShorts, and Brooklyn Film festivals. She is also on review committees for the HamptonsFilm Screenwriters Lab and Gotham Week. She currently serves as the manager of membership and outreach at the Sundance Institute, after working at Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA. She graduated from Harvard cum laude in visual environmental studies (film track). She is a native New Yorker with an undying love for her city. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, listening to music, and laughing with friends.

Ash Hoyle, Programmer

Ash is a features Programmer at the Sundance Film Festival. He focuses on both fiction, nonfiction, and Midnight. He has previously worked at Sundance as an Associate Programmer for shorts and features and to support Director of Programming, Kim Yutani. Ash has also worked as the Director of Programming of Damn These Heels Film Festival, run by the Utah Film Center, as well as a Senior Programmer at Outfest Los Angeles and a Programmer at Palm Springs Shorts Fest. Ash is a 2021 Project Involve Fellow on Film Independent’s programming track and has also been involved in programming, NewFest NY, Sun Valley Film Festival, Overlook Film Festival, and AFI Fest and worked in production at ABC, Mssng Peces, and The Annoyance Theater. Ash is originally from Philadelphia, PA and holds a dual degree in Film & English from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Tabitha Jackson - Festival Director