One of the stars of this season’s hottest movie, “Wicked,” is slated to come to the 2025 Sundance Film Festival to receive an award.
Cynthia Erivo — who portrays Elphaba, the green-skinned future Wicked Witch of the West in the musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” — has been chosen to receive the Visionary Award at the festival’s “Celebrating Sundance Institute” gala, the Sundance Institute announced Wednesday.
The fundraising gala is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 24, at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Utah.
Individual tickets for the gala cost $1,750 per person (of which $1,450 is considered a charitable contribution), or $4,000 for a couple, which comes with more perks. Tables for 10 guests can be purchased for $25,000 or $50,000. Proceeds go to the Sundance Institute.
Erivo is a favorite to receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance in “Wicked.” She received Oscar nominations, for actress and original song, for the 2019 drama “Harriet,” in which she played abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman.
(Mark Seliger | Sundance Institute) Actor Cynthia Erivo, known for her role as Elphaba in "Wicked," is slated to receive the Visionary Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival's fundraising gala.
Erivo has some history with Sundance. She served on one of the juries for the 2021 festival, which was held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She portrayed a war refugee who lands on a Greek island in “Drift,” which premiered at the 2023 festival; she also was one of the movie’s producers.
In a statement released through the institute, Erivo said the award “fills me with immense gratitude.” Sundance, Erivo said, “has always been a sanctuary for bold voices and transformative narratives, and to be a part of and recognized by this incredible community is deeply meaningful.”
Sundance also announced Wednesday that its Trailblazer Award will be given to director James Mangold, whose latest movie — the Bob Dylan biography “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet — is scheduled to be released in theaters on Christmas Day.
Mangold premiered his first movie — the drama “Heavy” with Pruitt Taylor Vince and Liv Tyler — at the festival in 1995, when he received a special jury prize for directing. A year before that, he participated in Sundance’s screenwriters and directors labs with his screenplay “Cop Land.” That movie was released in 1997, starring Sylvester Stallone as a New Jersey sheriff confronting corrupt New York City cops, led by Robert De Niro, who live in his town.
(Mel Melcon | Contour by Getty Images, courtesy of Sundance Institute) Director James Mangold is scheduled to receive the Trailblazer Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival's fundraising gala.
Since then, Mangold has directed “Girl, Interrupted,” “Kate & Leopold,” “Identity,” “Walk the Line,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “Knight and Day,” “The Wolverine,” “Logan,” “Ford vs. Ferrari” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
“I am floored and flattered that Sundance thought my body of work was worthy of this honor,” Mangold said in a statement.
The institute previously announced that the gala would honor Michelle Satter, the founding director of Sundance’s labs.
The institute’s Vanguard Awards will be given to the makers of two films that premiered at the 2024 festival: Sean Wang, who wrote and directed the autobiographical comedy-drama “Didi (弟弟),” and directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, whose documentary “Sugarcane” explored the tragic legacy of an Indigenous boarding school in British Columbia.
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is scheduled to run Jan. 23-Feb. 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City.
