Sundance Institute Announces 2026 Screenwriters Lab and Intensive Fellows

Posted on January 18, 2026 by admin

As Sundance 2026 approaches, the Institute has revealed its latest group of writers selected for its Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive, two long-running programs focused on helping emerging filmmakers shape their first and second features.

The Screenwriters Lab, held January 17 to 21 at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, will bring together 11 projects chosen from more than 3,800 submissions. Writers will spend the week workshopping original scripts in a small, collaborative setting, guided by a group of established filmmakers and writers. This year’s lab also doubles as a nod to Sundance’s roots, honoring founder Robert Redford and the program’s origins in the early 1980s.

Running separately in March, the Screenwriters Intensive will support nine projects from 13 writers, offering a more focused, online development experience aimed at first time fiction features.

Together, the selected projects reflect a wide range of voices and genres, from intimate family dramas and political thrillers to speculative stories and dark comedies, continuing Sundance’s long-standing emphasis on risk-taking and personal storytelling.
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The Mortuary Assistant Brings a Cult Horror Game to Theaters This February

Posted on January 16, 2026 by admin

If you’ve spent any time around horror games in recent years, The Mortuary Assistant likely sounds familiar. The unsettling indie hit, known for its slow-burn dread and deeply uncomfortable atmosphere, is getting a film adaptation, arriving in theaters on Friday, February 13, 2026.

The movie comes from Epic Pictures and Dread, the genre label behind Terrifier, and is based on the best-selling game created by Brian Clarke. IndieWire has already flagged it as one of the year’s most anticipated horror releases, and the newly debuted trailer leans heavily into the claustrophobic tension that made the game a cult favorite.

Directed by Slapface filmmaker Jeremiah Kipp, the film stars Willa Holland as Rebecca Owens, a newly certified mortician working the night shift alone at a small-town funeral home. As the hours stretch on, routine embalming work gives way to increasingly disturbing events, pulling Rebecca into a web of demonic rituals, buried trauma, and the unsettling influence of her mentor, played by Paul Sparks.

First released in 2022, The Mortuary Assistant gained viral attention through streamers and horror fans for its ability to create sustained unease rather than rely on cheap scares. The film expands on the game’s mythology while aiming to preserve its oppressive tone, including the recreation of the mortuary as a full practical set.

The Mortuary Assistant opens exclusively in theaters on February 13, before streaming on Shudder on March 27, 2026.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way Joins ‘The Lake’ Ahead of Sundance World Premiere

Posted on January 15, 2026 by admin

Ahead of its Day One world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions has boarded the feature documentary The Lake as executive producer, alongside Jennifer Davisson and Phillip Watson.

Directed by Abby Ellis (Flint’s Deadly Water), The Lake has quickly emerged as one of Sundance’s most closely watched documentaries. The film examines the accelerating ecological crisis surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which is rapidly shrinking and exposing a toxic lakebed containing arsenic, lead, mercury, and other heavy metals—posing serious health risks to millions living along the Wasatch Front.

The documentary follows two scientists and a political insider as they race to prevent an environmental catastrophe, offering a rare look at bipartisan efforts to address a crisis with both local and global implications. As Sundance prepares for its final year in Park City, the film’s urgency has drawn significant attention.

Ellis described the project as deeply personal:

“What’s happening in Utah is a microcosm for so many environmental stories around the world… Having the support of Appian Way will only help enhance our reach with this incredibly timely and relevant story.”

Appian Way’s involvement reinforces its continued focus on environmentally driven storytelling. Jennifer Davisson noted that the film aligns closely with the company’s mission to support urgent, impact driven narratives.

Blending scientific reality with moral reckoning, The Lake moves beyond traditional environmental documentaries, asking broader questions about responsibility, complicity, and whether communities can act in time to avert disaster.

Sundance ’26: BURN Brings Hyper-Color and Chaos to the NEXT Section

Posted on January 13, 2026 by admin

One of the films at Sundance this year that feels like it’s daring people to either love it or walk out is BURN, the new feature from Makoto Nagahisa, who previously made We Are Little Zombies. It’s premiering in the festival’s NEXT section, which feels like exactly where it belongs.

The movie centers on Ju-Ju (played by Nana Mori), a runaway teen who ends up in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district, falling in with a loose group of kids living on the edge. At first, it feels like she’s finally found somewhere to land. That doesn’t last. What starts as freedom slowly turns into something tighter, darker, and harder to escape.

Visually, BURN is doing a lot, neon colors, hyper-stylized shots, constant motion. It’s bright, almost playful on the surface, even when the story underneath is clearly heading somewhere painful. That contrast is the point. The movie looks fun right up until it very much isn’t, and it doesn’t really warn you when the switch happens.

Nagahisa has always been good at capturing youth culture in a way that feels chaotic instead of nostalgic, and BURN seems to push that even further. It’s not trying to explain its characters or soften their choices. It just drops you into their world and lets things unravel.

Director Bong Joon Ho has already weighed in on the film, calling it intense and even frightening, which tracks. This feels like one of those Sundance titles people will be arguing about afterward, not whether it’s good or bad, but whether they were ready for it at all.

BURN premieres January 25, with additional screenings throughout the festival.

‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Hamnet’ Come Out on Top at the 2026 Golden Globes

Posted on January 11, 2026 by admin

The Golden Globes did what they usually do best this year: set the tone for the rest of awards season while reminding everyone which films are actually building momentum.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another walked into the night as a frontrunner and walked out looking even stronger, picking up Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) along with wins for directing, screenplay, and Teyana Taylor’s supporting performance. The film’s mix of political satire and emotional stakes clearly connected with voters, and Anderson used his moment to spotlight the kind of filmmaker-driven studio support that made the film possible.

On the drama side, Hamnet took Best Motion Picture, with Jessie Buckley also winning for her performance. Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel continues to quietly build awards-season credibility, leaning into intimacy and grief rather than spectacle.

The TV categories followed a similar pattern, rewarding shows that already felt unavoidable this year. Netflix’s Adolescence had the biggest night overall, while The Pitt and The Studio took top series honors, with Noah Wyle and Seth Rogen winning acting prizes. The wins reinforced how much streaming dramas and sharp industry satire continue to dominate the conversation.

Elsewhere, Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and The Secret Agent all picked up multiple awards, underscoring how wide the Globes’ tastes have become, from genre films to international titles to animated hits.

Hosted by Nikki Glaser, the ceremony aired January 11 from the Beverly Hilton on CBS and Paramount+. With the Globes now behind us, the field is narrowing, and the next stretch of the awards season is officially underway.

2026 Sundance Film Festival Unveils Beyond Film Talks and Events

Posted on January 9, 2026 by admin

Sundance isn’t just about the films, it’s also where a lot of the conversations around them happen.

The Sundance Institute has announced the Beyond Film lineup for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, featuring talks and events with Olivia Wilde, Richard Linklater, Ava DuVernay, Billie Jean King, Salman Rushdie, John Turturro, Nicole Holofcener, Elijah Wood, Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Wan, and more.

The Beyond Film program runs January 23–30, alongside the Festival, which takes place January 22–February 1, 2026, in Park City and Salt Lake City, with select events available online.

New this year is Sundance Institute’s Story Forum: Exploring Art and Innovation, a one-day event on January 26 focused on how storytelling is evolving across creative and technological spaces.

The free public program includes filmmaker conversations, artist talks, and live events like Cinema Café and The Big Conversation, with participants ranging from filmmakers and writers to cultural figures across disciplines.

The 2026 Festival will also spotlight Robert Redford’s legacy through the Park City Legacy program, featuring archival screenings, alumni talks, and community events celebrating Sundance’s history.

Most Beyond Film events are free to attend, with full schedules and access details available at festival.sundance.org.

Producers Guild of America Announces 2026 Awards Nominees

Posted on January 9, 2026 by admin

We’re officially in that part of awards season where the shortlists matter, and the Producers Guild of America’s nominations offer an early read on which films are actually building momentum.

The PGA has announced the film and television nominees for the 37th Annual Producers Guild Awards, set to take place February 28, 2026, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The theatrical motion picture lineup includes Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams, and Weapons.

Warner Bros. leads studio representation with three nominated films, followed by Focus Features and Netflix with two apiece, and single entries from Apple and NEON. Notably absent from the list are major franchise sequels like Avatar: Fire and Ash and Wicked: For Good. Aside from Bugonia, a remake, the field leans heavily toward original stories and literary adaptations, continuing a broader awards-season preference for non-franchise titles.

Historically, the PGA’s top prize, the Darryl F. Zanuck Award, has been one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers, aligning with the Academy Award for Best Picture in 17 of the past 22 years.
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Bitter Rice, Giuseppe De Santis’ Neo-Realist Classic, Returns in a New 4K Restoration

Posted on January 8, 2026 by admin

Giuseppe De Santis’ Bitter Rice (1949), one of the most provocative and influential films of Italian neorealism, will screen at Film Forum from January 30 through February 5 in a newly restored 4K edition.

Set during planting season in Northern Italy’s Po Valley, Bitter Rice follows a group of rice-field workers known as the mondine, focusing on an earthy laborer played by Silvana Mangano who becomes entangled with a small-time criminal, portrayed by Vittorio Gassman, and his glamorous accomplice, played by Doris Dowling. The film blends social realism with melodrama, pairing its portrait of grueling manual labor with sex, crime, and moral tension.

Filmed on location with real mondine visible in the background, Bitter Rice stands out even within neorealism for its raw physicality and pulp energy. The film was an early international success for producer Dino De Laurentiis, premiered at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Story the following year.

De Santis, who came up as a critic and screenwriter before directing, was deeply shaped by anti-Fascist film culture in Italy and by his collaborations with figures like Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini. Bitter Rice reflects that background, merging political consciousness with a visceral, almost sensational style that helped broaden the reach of neorealism beyond strictly austere realism.

The new 4K restoration offers a rare chance to see Bitter Rice with renewed visual clarity, restoring the texture and immediacy of a film that helped redefine postwar European cinema, and remains strikingly modern in its mix of social critique and genre filmmaking.

IMAX Had Its Biggest Year Ever… and the Movies Driving It Might Surprise You

Posted on January 7, 2026 by admin

Avatar: Fire and Ash
20th Century Studios

IMAX closed out 2025 with the strongest box office performance in its history, pulling in a record $1.28 billion globally. That’s a 40 percent jump over 2024 and even higher than the company’s pre-pandemic peak in 2019, a notable milestone at a time when the broader theatrical business is still finding its footing.

What stands out isn’t just the total, but where the money came from. IMAX’s top-grossing films of the year weren’t dominated by traditional Hollywood blockbusters alone. The biggest title on IMAX screens was Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animated epic that barely registered in North America but became a massive global hit. It was followed by Avatar: Fire and Ash, F1: The Movie from Apple, the anime phenomenon Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

That mix tells a bigger story about how IMAX is positioning itself. The company’s growth is increasingly tied to international audiences, anime fans, and filmmakers who deliberately shoot with IMAX cameras, not just tentpole franchises aimed at U.S. multiplexes. In fact, local-language films accounted for more than $400 million of IMAX’s box office in 2025, a record for the format.
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Oscar-Shortlisted Short Documentary Perfectly a Strangeness Sets NYC Screenings

Posted on January 4, 2026 by admin

Alison McAlpine’s short documentary Perfectly a Strangeness continues its awards-season run with two upcoming New York City screenings in January, following its inclusion on the Academy Awards’ 2026 shortlist for Best Documentary Short.

The 15-minute Canadian film, which premiered in Official Competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, unfolds in a desert landscape where three donkeys encounter an abandoned astronomical observatory. Blending documentary with elements of myth, science fiction, and philosophical inquiry, the film explores perception, curiosity, and humanity’s relationship to the cosmos through a strikingly sensory approach.

Perfectly a Strangeness has earned significant critical praise, with Deadline calling it “one of the most cinematic documentaries of the year,” and The Film Verdict describing it as “a heady blend of myth, science fiction, documentary, comedy and philosophical exploration.” The film has also screened at TIFF, IDFA, and more than 70 international festivals.

The New York screenings include a January 7 showing at Quad Cinema, followed by a Q&A with critic Jordan Hoffman, and a January 10 screening at DCTV with a post-screening conversation led by filmmaker Penny Lane.

McAlpine, whose previous work includes the acclaimed feature documentary CIELO, is a Guggenheim Fellow and is currently developing her first narrative feature alongside a new hybrid documentary project.