Movie buffs can breathe a sigh of relief and finally get to go to the Sundance Film Festival from the comfort of their home.
This January 28th, the Sundance Film Festival can be viewed from iwonder and will feature seven days of online premieres, talks and exhibitions uniting indie film lovers everywhere from the convenience of their homes and smartphones.
On iwonder, viewers can immerse themselves in the world of Sundance Film Festivals past, headlined by the streaming return of the classic, Grizzly Man.
Featuring Official Selections, Audience Award recipients and Grand Jury Prize winners, this month iwonder celebrates some of the iconic festival’s most memorable documentaries ahead of 2021’s online-only event.
Here are some of the past award-winning films to start with:
1. Grizzly Man
Grizzly Man is a timeless film by acclaimed director, Werner Herzog, which explores the life and death of amateur grizzly bear expert and wildlife preservationist, Timothy Treadwell.
Pieced together from Treadwell’s actual video footage, the Sundance Alfred P. Sloan Prize winner examines how Treadwell believed he had bridged the gap between human and beast and what drove him to live unarmed among a tribe of wild grizzly bears on an Alaskan reserve for 13 summers.
However, when one of the bears he loved and protected tragically turns on him, the footage he shot serves as a window into our understanding of nature and its grim realities.
2. Enemies of the People
The Khmer Rouge ran what is regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most brutal regimes. Yet for decades the Killing Fields of Cambodia remained unexplained.
Winner of the Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize, in Enemies of the People, the men and women who perpetrated the massacres – from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party’s ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two – break a 30-year silence to give testimonies never before heard or seen.
3. Blood Brother
Why would someone leave everything behind to devote their life to helping others?
Answering that question, Blood Brother explores the remarkable story of Rocky Braat, a young man from a fractured family and a troubled past who went traveling through India without a plan. There he met a group of HIV-positive children living in an orphanage — a meeting that changed everything for him.
Filmmaker Steve Hoover was intrigued and unnerved by his best friend’s radical life change, deciding to trace Braat's story, following him to India. There he witnessed Rocky and the kids endure disease, abject poverty, and death. But in the midst of all these troubles, he also saw their deep joy, and came to understand why Rocky had given up everything he had to experience it.
The Sundance Grand Jury and Audience Award winning Blood Brother is a story of friendship and of life stripped down to its essence.
4. My Perestroika: A Nation’s History Is Personal | Sundance Nominee 2010
Just coming of age when the USSR collapsed, five Soviet children witnessed the world of their childhood crumble and change beyond recognition. Through the lives of these former schoolmates, this intimate film reveals how they have adjusted to their post-Soviet reality in present-day Moscow.
5. Miss Representation | Sundance Official Selection 2011
Miss Representation explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, challenging the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman.
6. The Invisible War | Sundance Audience Award 2012
A powerful investigative documentary, The Invisible War uncovers the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the US military, the institutions that perpetuate and suppress its existence, and its profound personal and social consequences.
7. The Case Against 8 | Sundance Directing Award 2014
A behind-the-scenes look inside the case to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage. Shot over five years, the film follows the unlikely team that took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court.
8. The Last Race | Sundance Official Selection 2018
A sumptuous documentary depicting the Long Island birthplace of stock car racing, where a single track remains and only the love and integrity of the track's community and elderly owners keep the bulldozers at bay.
