Sundance Documentary Programmers On This Year’s Standouts Including “Mystery” Film About A World Famous Photograph – Doc Talk Podcast

In two days the Sundance Film Festival kicks off in Park City with a robust slate of nonfiction films (we leave it to others to cover the fiction slate!). Opening day/night alone features several world-premiere documentaries including the latest from two Oscar winners: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) and Mstyslav Chernov’s 2000 Meters to Andriivka.

On the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we welcome Sundance documentary programmers Basil Tsiokos and Sudeep Sharma to explore some of the most anticipated nonfiction films and episodics on the 2025 slate. Along with the Questlove and Chernov’s docs, they tell us about the mystery surrounding a late add to the festival – The Stringer, directed by Bao Nguyen. We say “mystery” because the film already is generating controversy before its debut, and the Sundance programmers aren’t even at liberty, at this point, to confirm the substance of the film. We can tell you it involves one of the most famous photographs ever taken – one that played a pivotal role in turning public opinion against an American war.

Tsiokos tells us about the festival’s vetting process for documentaries that allege wrongdoing of some kind – be it of an ethical or legal nature.

Sharma and Tsiokos also highlight more films that could generate major buzz at Sundance, like The Perfect Neighbor, directed by Geeta Gandbhir, a riveting examination of a case in Florida where a white woman shot her Black neighbor in Ocala, FL in June 2023. It’s told almost entirely through police body cam and dashboard cam videos. Predators, meanwhile, directed by David Osit, centers on the Dateline NBC series To Catch a Predator, exploring “the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show and the world it helped create.”

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The programmers share details on Deaf President Now!, a cinematic collaboration between Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim and model-turned-filmmaker Nyle DiMarco (the first deaf person to win America’s Next Top Model, and winner of Season 22 of Dancing with the Stars). Their film examines huge demonstrations that broke out at Gallaudet, the historic university in Washington, D.C., that serves a student body of deaf and hard-of-hearing-students.

That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.

Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.