Hailey Gates’ “Atropia” and Brittany Shyne’s “Seeds” claimed the top jury awards at Sundance, along with audience favorites "Twinless,” “DJ Ahmet” and “Prime Minister.”

Like many of the independent films that premiered at this muted edition of Sundance, “Atropia” has not yet sold to a distributor.

There’s an inherent farce to the U.S. government, or so Hailey Gates suggests in her debut feature film, Atropia. Based on her 2019 short film Shako Mako, Gates expands her exploration of fake towns established by the American military for training purposes and the actors cast as townspeople — and potential terrorists — in those training scenarios.

Photos from the Sundance Film Festival 2025, the premieres of 'Atropia' & 'The Ballad of Wallis Island' on Day 3.

"Atropia," a satire of the Iraq War and military contractors' efforts to prepare soldiers to fight overseas, was one of the big winners at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival's awards ceremony.

Hailey Gates turned her Miu Miu "Women's Tales" short film into a Sundance feature, starring Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner.

A documentary deconstructs the true crime genre, an obsessive worms his way into a pop star's entourage, and more standouts from Sundance 2025.

In writer-director Hailey Gates' directorial debut 'Atropia', she dives into the Bush-era culture of toxic masculinity, nationalism and Islamophobia.

While the Sundance Film Festival mulls a big move for 2027 , the 2025 program is under way. The event’s 41st edition kicked off January 23 in Utah, and you can look below for all of Deadline’s reviews from the fest so far.

"Atropia." "Sabar Bonda (Catus Pears)" and "Cutting Through Rocks" are some of the top winners of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

This year’s Sundance Film Festival screened more than two dozen LGBTQ features, shorts, and documentaries, including highly anticipated remakes of “Kiss of