'The Thing With Feathers' to Debut at Sundance 2025

The American Sundance Film Festival is young compared to other "Big Five" International Film Festivals, aka the events where production studios debut their best bets for awards love. The original Big Three, the Venice Film Festival in Italy, The Cannes Film Festival in France, and The Berlin International Film Festival (usually called The Berlinale) launched between 1932 and 1951. In comparison, the 1970s-launched Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and Sundance are newcomers. However, Sundance's strategic January placement has allowed it to overtake Berlinale as the opening shot for filmmakers to introduce their contenders.

The mid-2020s will be a significant period for Sundance, as next year, 2026, will mark the last year of its contract for remaining in Park City and the Sundance Resort area of Utah. After 48 years, the festival has reached a point where it is outgrowing the area. Park City continues to be a finalist to win back the contract (something that will set the festival on a course for a 50-year celebration in 2028). Still, conventional wisdom assumes it will move, with the other two finalist spaces in Boulder, Colorado, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Like the American Film Institute's festival in Los Angeles, Sundance is primarily an American-centric program (founder Robert Redford designed it to showcase and promote American Independent Film). However, plenty of international contenders compete in the world showcases and newer programming categories like "Next" and "Spotlight." One of those debuts, The Thing with Feathers, a film first announced as a Cannes Market project two years ago in 2023 and, after some delays, was picked up by Film4. The film puts Benedict Cumberbatch back in a leading role as a father experiencing a mental health crisis*. 

(*He's in his Mentally Unwell Paterfamilias Era.)

Here's the full lineup of U.K. productions at Sundance 2025:

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

• Brides (U.K.: Director: Nadia Fall, Screenwriter: Suhayla El-Bushra, Producers: Nicky Bentham, Marica Stocchi) — Two teenage girls in search of freedom, friendship, and belonging run away from their troubled lives with a misguided plan of traveling to Syria. Cast: Ebada Hassan, Safiyya Ingar, Yusra Warsama, Cemre Ebuzziya, Aziz Capkurt. World Premiere.
• Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) (U.K., Canada, India: Director/Screenwriter: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, Producers: Neeraj Churi, Mohamed Khaki, Kaushik Ray, Hareesh Reddypalli, Naren Chandavarkar, Sidharth Meer) — Anand, a 30-something city dweller compelled to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in the rugged countryside of western India, tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, Anand must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress. Cast: Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman, Jayshri Jagtap. World Premiere. 

World Cinema Documentary Competition

• The Dating Game (U.S., U.K., Norway: Director/Producer: Violet Du Feng, Producers: Joanna Natasegara, James Costa, Mette Cheng Munthe-Kaas) –– In a country where eligible men greatly outnumber women, three perpetual bachelors join an intensive seven-day dating camp led by one of China’s most sought-after dating coaches in what may be their last-ditch effort to find love. World Premiere.
• Khartoum (U.K., Germany, Sudan, Qatar: Screenwriter/Director Phil Cox, Directors: Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Producers: Giovanna Stopponi, Talal Afifi) –– Forced to leave Sudan for East Africa following the outbreak of war, five citizens of Khartoum — a civil servant, a tea lady, a resistance committee volunteer, and two young bottle collectors — reenact their stories of survival and freedom through dreams, revolution, and civil war. World Premiere.

Next

• Zodiac Killer Project (U.S., U.K.: Director/Producer: Charlie Shackleton, Producers: Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing) –– Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes — the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle — a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point. World Premiere.

Premieres

• The Ballad of Wallis Island (U.K.: Director: James Griffiths, Screenwriters: Tom Basden, Tim Key, Producer: Rupert Majendie) –– Eccentric lottery winner, Charles, dreams of getting his favorite band, Mortimer-McGwyer, back together. His fantasy becomes reality when the bandmates and former lovers accept his invitation to play a private show at his home on Wallis Island. Old tensions resurface as Charles tries desperately to salvage his dream gig. Cast: Tom Basden, Tim Key, Sian Clifford, Akemnji Ndifornyen, Carey Mulligan. World Premiere.
• Jimpa (Australia, Netherlands, Finland: Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Sophie Hyde, Screenwriter: Matthew Cormack, Producers: Liam Heyen, Bryan Mason, Marleen Slot)––Hannah takes her nonbinary teenager, Frances, to Amsterdam to visit their gay grandfather, Jim — lovingly known as Jimpa. But Frances’ desire to stay abroad with Jimpa for a year means Hannah is forced to reconsider her beliefs about parenting and finally confront old stories about the past. Cast: Olivia Colman, John Lithgow, Aud Mason-Hyde. World Premiere.
• The Thing with Feathers (U.K.: Director/Screenwriter: Dylan Southern, Producers: Andrea Cornwell, Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland) –– Struggling to process the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, a young father loses his hold on reality as a seemingly malign presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons. Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall, Eric Lampaert, Vinette Robinson, Sam Spruell. World Premiere.
• Peter Hujar’s Day (U.S.: Director/Screenwriter: Ira Sachs, Producers: Jordan Drake, Jonah Disend) –– A recently discovered conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974 reveals a glimpse into New York City’s downtown art scene and the personal struggles and epiphanies that define an artist’s life. Cast: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall. World Premiere.

Salt Lake Celebration Film

• Train Dreams (U.S.: Director/Screenwriter: Clint Bentley, Screenwriter: Greg Kwedar, Producers: Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, Michael Heimler) –– Robert Grainier is a day laborer building America’s railroads at the start of the 20th century as he experiences profound love, shocking defeat, and a world irrevocably transforming before his very eyes. Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy. World Premiere.

Midnight

• Rabbit Trap (U.K.: Director/Screenwriter: Bryn Chainey, Producers: Daniel Noah, Lawrence Inglee, Elijah Wood, Elisa Lleras, Adrian Politowski, Martin Metz) –– When a musician and her husband move to a remote house in Wales, the music they make disturbs local ancient folk magic, bringing a nameless child to their door who is intent on infiltrating their lives. Cast: Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen, Jade Croot. World Premiere. 
• Together (Australia, U.S.: Director/Screenwriter: Michael Shanks, Producers: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Mike Cowap, Andrew Mittman, Erik Feig, Max Silva) –– With a move to the countryside already testing the limits of a couple’s relationship, a supernatural encounter begins an extreme transformation of their love, their lives, and their flesh. Cast: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Damon Herriman. World Premiere. 

Spotlight

• One to One: John & Yoko (U.K.: Director/Producer: Kevin Macdonald, Producers: Peter Worsley, Alice Webb) –– An exploration of the seminal and transformative 18 months that one of music’s most famous couples — John Lennon and Yoko Ono — spent living in Greenwich Village, New York City, in the early 1970s.

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival runs from Thursday, January 23, through Saturday, February 2, 2025, in Park City, Utah.