Cynthia Erivo, star of Harriet and Julie Dash, director of Daughters of the Dust, are among the 22 names selected to oversee the competition juries at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Erivo and Dash, alongside Hanya Yanagihara, editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, will lead the U.S. Dramatic Competition jury this year.
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The 22 celebrated voices across film, art and culture will bestow the festival awards for feature-length and short films at a digital ceremony taking place February 2nd.
“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival’s director of programming, according to The Wrap. “We’re pleased to bring this accomplished, creative group together, and look forward to hearing their thoughts.”
Erivo is a Tony-, Emmy- and Grammy-winning actress and singer as well as an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominee. Erivo gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, and later starring in the film, Harriet. Currently, Erivo can be seen on the HBO series The Outsider. In March, she is set to play Aretha Franklin on National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha.
Read More: FIRST LOOK: Cynthia Erivo transforms into a legend for ‘Genius: Aretha’
Filmmaker Julie Dash broke through racial and gender boundaries with Daughters of the Dust for which she won the Best Cinematography award at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. In 2004 the Library of Congress placed Daughters of the Dust in the National Film Registry, where it joins a select group of American films preserved and protected as national treasures.
Dash has written and directed television projects including episodes of Queen Sugar for the Oprah Winfrey Network. She also directed The Rosa Parks Story, Incognito, Funny Valentines and Subway Stories.
This year’s festival will be fully available online. Awards Night will be live-streamed, and award-winning films will be available for special extended-run viewing the day after the ceremony.
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