A valkyrie, a couple of Oscar winners and a legendary avant-garde musician will be among the jurors picking the best films at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Festival organizers at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute announced the jury lineups Thursday — a list that includes actor Tessa Thompson (who played Valkyrie in “Thor: Ragnarok”), the genre-breaking musician Laurie Anderson, and filmmakers Damien Chazelle (“La La Land,” “First Man”) and Jane Campion (“The Piano”).
The institute also announced the host for the festival’s awards ceremony on Feb. 2: actor and filmmaker Marianna Palka, who directed and starred in the Sundance entries “Good Dick” (SFF ’08) and “Bitch” (SFF ’17). Palka currently co-stars as Reggie Walsh, aka Vicky the Viking, on Netflix’s women’s wrestling comedy “Glow.”
In addition to jury awards, audiences will vote on awards in the U.S. and World Cinema categories, Dramatic and Documentary, and for the Festival Favorite, which will cover every movie playing and will be awarded a week after the festival.
The jury lineups are:
U.S. Dramatic • Director/writer Desiree Akhavan (“The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” SFF ’18 Grand Jury Prize winner); director Damien Chazelle (Oscar winner for “La La Land”); Film Society of Lincoln Center programming director Dennis Lim; Phyllis Nagy, screenwriter of “Carol” and writer-director of HBO’s “Mrs. Harris”; actor Tessa Thompson (“Thor: Ragnarok,” “Creed,” “Sorry to Bother You”).
Damien Chazelle arrives at the 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, in Los Angeles. Chazelle will serve on the U.S. Dramatic jury for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
U.S. Documentary • Anthropologist and filmmaker Lucian Castaing-Taylor; director Yance Ford (“Strong Island,” SFF ’17); director Rachel Grady (co-directed “Detropia,” SFF ’12; “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You,” SFF ’16); director Jeff Orlowski (“Chasing Ice,” SFF ’12; “Chasing Coral,” SFF ’17); Vox.com film critic Alissa Wilkinson.
World Cinema Dramatic • Director/writer Jane Campion (Oscar winner for “The Piano”); French film producer/distributor Charles Gillibert; filmmaker Ciro Guerra (“Embrace of the Serpent,” “Birds of Passage”).
Jane Campion arrives at the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Campion will serve on the World Cinema Dramatic jury for the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
World Cinema Documentary • Director Maite Alberdi (“The Grown-Ups”); Nico Marzano, film curator and head of film distribution for London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts; anthropologist and artist Véréna Paravel.
Short Film • Playwright Young Jean Lee (“Straight White Men”); filmmaker Carter Smith (“Jamie Marks Is Dead,” SFF ’14); actor Sheila Vand (“We the Animals,” “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”).
Next Innovators Award • Musician, filmmaker and futurist Laurie Anderson, who will be a jury of one.
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize • Mandë Holford, chemistry professor at Hunter College; Katie Mack, theoretical astrophysicist; Sev Ohanian, screenwriter (“Searching,” SFF ’18); producer/director Lydia Dean Pilcher (who produced “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”); and actor Corey Stoll (“First Man,” “Ant-Man”). The prize, given to a movie that highlights science or technology, will go to “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” directed and written by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
