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Alison Stewart: The Sundance Film Festival will be in person in Park City, Utah for the first time since 2020. It kicks off tomorrow and runs through January 29th, but there'll also be an online portion of the festival as well. Sundance is always a big event in the film world with exclusive screenings and distribution deals to be made. There are, of course, some notable prizes at the end, which can send a film or filmmaker on their way. With me now to run through a bit of the slate is this year's Sundance Film Festival director of programming Kim Yutani. Hi, Kim.

Kim Yutani: Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Thanks so much for being with us. This is the first in-person Sundance Film Festival since 2020. How does the in-person change? What does that do to the spirit of the festival?

Kim Yutani: I think this year is going to be incredibly special. I already feel it. I just arrived in Park City yesterday and I already have this sense that it's going to just re-energize everybody. It's been really difficult, excuse me, the last two years being an online festival. So much of how these films are received and the excitement and just the general feeling around and excitement around independent film happens in movie theaters on the mountain. I cannot wait till we can actually do this tomorrow. I keep pinching myself that I'm actually here.

Alison Stewart: As you all were putting it together, you and your team, the slate of films, what were you looking for? Were there any themes this year? Was there anything in particular you knew you wanted, topics you wanted to cover? How did you choose?

Kim Yutani: That's a great question because, for us, we are reacting to the films that we get. This year we got more submissions than ever. We almost hit 16,000 films submitted to us, so we ended up making some really hard decisions. I think we don't really go into a festival looking to cover certain things but I think that after we see what we get, and after we talk about these films ad nauseam for months, we start to see the strands of the festival and the different types of stories that we want to include and the different types of styles of filmmaking that we see. We're very open to what we are seeing. I think that it's an exciting moment to see what's been occupying artists' minds.

Alison Stewart: 16,000 submissions, you get it down to what number?

Kim Yutani: I think this year we have around 110 films, feature films, and 65 short films, so the odds of getting in are not high. That's the exciting part about submitting to festivals, I think.

Alison Stewart: Now, we mentioned that it's in-person for the first time since 2020, but there is a hybrid model. There is an online component. I think we've all learned since the pandemic, some of the things that we did online worked really well. What have you folks kept in terms of the world of online and the Sundance Film Festival?

Kim Yutani: That's something that is special about this year's festival to have the festival on the ground and in Park City, but then also to have an online component that rolls out about halfway through our festival. On Tuesday, the 24th, all of our competition films are available. Our next section is available then some additional titles. The best way to find out about what our online offerings are is to go to our website and you can buy individual tickets that way.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Kim Yutani. She's director of programming of Sundance. We are previewing the Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off tomorrow. You put together a short list of some of the films that are screening at the festival this year. Let's go through some of them. The film, Mutt, is a directorial debut. It follows a Latinx trans man, Feña, through one day in New York City. That begins screening online, January 24th. What are some of the obstacles Feña faces in his day?

Kim Yutani: Mutt is such a special film. I think it might take place in New York City, but it also can be anywhere where you're just having a day where you are coming up against obstacle after obstacle. You're having relationship issues, your ex turns up, your sister needs your help, your father is coming into town. This is such a charming film, but also I think, is quite emotional. It's such a human experience of just being a person living your life and it's all in one day. The thing that I really love about this film too is just the trans representation that you see in this film. I feel this film really just moves the needle on representation, and that's something I really responded to.

Alison Stewart: That film is called Mutt. Next, we're going to talk about Going To Mars: Nikki Giovanni Project. It begins screening online, January 24th, and it follows the life of poet, Nikki Giovanni. The poet once wrote to herself, "The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans." Let's listen to a little bit of the trailer, Going To Mars.

Going To Mars Trailer: We're going to mars. We're going to Mars because whatever is wrong with us will not get right with us, so we journey forth carrying the same baggage, but every now and then leaving one little bitty thing behind. When do we learn and what does it take to teach us things cannot be what we want, when we want, as we want? Other people have ideas and inputs, the future is ours to take. We're going to Mars because we have the hardware to do it.

Alison Stewart: From the trailer, this looks like it is as visually interesting as her poetry is. What are some of the choices the directors made to match the style of Giovanni's work?

Kim Yutani: Yes, Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster are the filmmakers of Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. They're great documentary filmmakers. We've received so many films about people. There's the biographical documentary is definitely the hot commodity these days. To see a film like this that is focusing on a poet and through the filmmaking, just bringing her words to life in this just with the craft of filmmaking, is such an accomplishment. I think that this film is really going to excite people. If you know Nikki Giovanni, then you will be really pleased to know more about her and to see her life expressed in this way. I think for people who are less familiar with her will be really inspired by this film and will embrace it and we'll be happy to learn about this significant artist and writer and activist. She's a real force of nature.

Alison Stewart: The next film we're going to talk about is The Eternal Memory. It's in the world cinema documentary competition. It follows a Chilean couple, Augusto and Paulina. Augusto lives with Alzheimer's. What does this film capture about Alzheimer's and life with Alzheimer's?

Kim Yutani: Now, I think people are going to be really affected by this film. It's such an intimate portrait. Maite Alberdie made this film, she directed the film, The Mall Agent, which was nominated for an Oscar and played in our 2020 festival. She's just such a master at capturing just the humor and the love between people. This is a film about partnership too. I think at the end of it that people will be emotionally affected by it. They will be able to identify with this film. I think everybody is going through some version of this or will and I think this is just one of the beautiful human stories in our program.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about some of the programming at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off tomorrow. My guest is Kim Yutani, Director of programming at Sundance. Another film you pointed us towards is Theater Camp from co-directors, Molly Gordon and Mark Lieberman. Ben Platt is in the cast. Its setting is at Upstate Theater Camp, and I believe it started out as a short film a few years ago. It has a pretty cool cast, including Amy Sedaris. When you think about this film in terms of its mockumentary style and its focus on theater, sometimes there's truth in the funny. What's some of the truth that comes out in this film?

Kim Yutani: [chuckles] I point people to this film because I think we show a lot of films that are very serious, they're dramatic. One of the things that I think is so special about Sundance is to be able to enjoy a film with others, to have a great time. For me, this film is just that. It's very clever. It's very funny. How often do you get to see theater nerds just doing their thing in this way that just embraces this subculture that-- I know a lot of our programming team also had some Theater Camp experience, so it spoke to them in a very specific way.

When I watched this film, I laughed from beginning to end, and I was also surprisingly touched by this film, too. I think that this is one of the ones that you talk about the films that are going to make a splash at the festival that will get deals, and I suspect this will be one of them.

Alison Stewart: I'm curious about Murder in Bighorn. It's a three-episode docuseries screening in person and online next week and explores circumstances surrounding the disappearances of Indigenous women in the Crow and Northern Shan nations of Bighorn in Montana. It says it's coming to Showtime on February 3, so that deal has already been made. How does that work?

Kim Yutani: Yes, I think that when we see films and projects that speak to us and are telling stories that we think are important, we want to help give them launches. I think that films and projects like this deserve a bigger platform. Not saying that Showtime isn't a huge platform on its own, but I think the conversation that will come out of this is so important. The filmmakers, Roselle Binali and Matthew Gulkin, I think, did an incredible job making this project, and I think for us, too, that we're very committed to showing longer form work.

I'll started with Top of the Lake, Jane Campion's project that we showed at Sundance. I think this project is as it focuses on missing and murdered Indigenous women, it becomes such a complex exploration. While it deals with very difficult subject matter, it just manages to accomplish something really special. I think that we were all really profoundly moved by this project.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a little bit of the trailer from Murder in Bighorn.

Murder in Bighorn Trailer

Speaker 1: The darkness that has happened is this black cloud, the vapor, that energy just consumes your whole tribe.

Speaker 2: Since colonization, Native women have been targeted.

Speaker 3: Multiple families grieving over teenage girls.

Speaker 4: There's so many of them.

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Speaker 5: You can get killed real easily around here.

Speaker 6: I know something happened to her out there.

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Speaker 7: I hear this little small voice saying, " come find me, dad."

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Alison Stewart: That is Murder in Bighorn. The last film we're going to talk about briefly is Kim's Video, a favorite to people who have lived in New York for a long time. A lot of people think they know a lot about Kim's Video. What's something that people will learn from this film that maybe they didn't know about Yongman Kim and the video store that he ran that so many of us checked out videos from?

Kim Yutani: Yes, I've noticed that all the New Yorkers want to see. This is like first on their list to see. I think that this is such a fun journey that this film takes us on. Ashley Sabin and David Redmond are the directors of this film. This is in our section called The Next, which is the section that takes creative risks. These films have really bold approaches to storytelling. I think that this film takes formal risks in how it is telling us a story about Mr. Kim.

It's a wild journey to figure out what happened to the 55,000 rental titles that vanished. I think this is such a love letter to this institution and also to analog culture and to cinema. I love the work that Ashley and David did on this film.

Alison Stewart: People listening to this segment in eight months or so might see one of these films. It might be up for some award this time last next year. They think, "Oh, yes, I heard about that. That's opened at Sundance." When you think about it, just in all honesty, how does winning or even showing at Sundance change a film's trajectory?

Kim Yutani: I think getting into the festival alone can be a career-changing moment for the films and filmmakers at Sundance. I think everybody every filmmaker has its own and every project has its own path of success. For some projects, it might mean getting bought. For some filmmakers, it might mean finding your agent and finding collaborators that you work with in the future. Then there are the big stories of the multimillion-dollar sales and the people who go on to win big awards. I think that we embrace all of that.

I think that it's an opportunity for artists and films to get seen. We know that this is an enormous platform and we're excited that so many projects find their way out of our festival and that will continue to be talked about throughout the year. That's one of the exciting things about Sundance being in January. It sets the tone for a lot of how the films will be talked about throughout the year.

Alison Stewart: The Sundance Film Festival starts tomorrow and it runs through January 29. There is an online component if you are interested, and in New York and just can't quite get to Park City, Utah. Kim Yutani, thank you so much for being with us.

Kim Yutani: It's my pleasure, Alison. Thanks for having me.

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