Sundance 2025

In his latest documentary, world-premiering at Sundance, Charlie Shackleton ruminates both over his abandoned investigation into a notorious (and unsolved) murder as well as the limitations of the true crime genre. “It does increasingly feel that absolutely the only thing you can get made is true crime or celebrity documentary. And it feels really suffocating,” Shackleton tells BDE.

Part angry doc about a conspiracy to poison the environment in upstate New York in the early 1990s and part warm-hearted high school recollection, the engrossing Middletown examines how an unconventional teacher inspired a group of teens to make student films that exposed organised crime in the dumping of poisonous materials into landfill sites in their community.

David Borenstein talks to BDE about his Sundance feature doc co-directed with, and featuring, Pavel (Pasha) Talankin, a schoolteacher in an industrial town in Russia who decided to chronicle the way the war was affecting his school. “This is something of a political thriller and a very vital record of wartime Russia, but then to have Pasha’s voice at the centre creates that heart-warming, schoolyard drama vibe as well,” says Borenstein.

Cutting Through Rocks by Sara Khaki wins World Cinema Grand Jury Doc Prize while the Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin wins the World Cinema Doc Special Jury Award. The Directing Award: World Cinema Doc went to 2000 Meters to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov. On the US front, the Grand Jury Prize Doc went to Seeds by Brittany Shyne, while the Directing Award: U.S. Docu was won by Geeta Gandbhir for The Perfect Neighbor.