The independent producing community took center stage at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Producers Celebration, where the Sundance Institute and Amazon MGM Studios honored two standout producers whose work is premiering at this year’s festival.
Held at The Park in Park City, the annual gathering brought together producers across the Festival lineup and featured the presentation of the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards, along with a keynote address from acclaimed producer Shane Boris, whose credits include Navalny and Fire of Love.
This year’s awards recognized Apoorva Guru Charan, producer of Take Me Home, and Dawne Langford, producer of Who Killed Alex Odeh?, with each recipient receiving a 10,000 dollar grant in the fiction and nonfiction categories, respectively. Both films are making their world premieres at the 2026 Festival.
Boris’s keynote struck a deeply personal and resonant note, tracing his unconventional path into producing and emphasizing the role of connection in creative collaboration. “… It went something like this: Growing up I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. I sensed that I could easily connect with others, and I loved listening to them. I would scan for creative sparks with everyone I met. When something sparked, I would see if maybe we could kindle a little flame, and from there maybe turn that into a fire in the form of a moment, a lasting friendship, or a creative collaboration.”
That instinct eventually defined his career. Boris spoke about living what he called a life of an itinerant listener, traveling with little more than friendships, shared couches, and an openness to ideas. “… One thing I can say about the filmmaking process is that we will undoubtedly experience not knowing what to do or where to go, and we will have to figure it out. We will be forced to ask ourselves time and time again how to live spontaneously and improvisationally in relationship with the mystery. And after we respond once, however imperfectly, to the unknown with grace, we will hopefully be able to do it again, and again until we gain a confidence that, as the Chinese folk saying goes, we’ll be able to cross the river by feeling for stones.”
Throughout the keynote, Boris returned to the idea that producing is as much about community as it is about logistics. He credited fellow producers with helping him navigate difficult circumstances and transform ideals into tangible work, saying that the company he keeps is what continues to sustain him in the face of uncertainty.
He also addressed the inevitability of not knowing during the filmmaking process, encouraging producers to embrace uncertainty as part of the creative act. Boris likened the process to learning how to cross a river by feeling for stones, responding imperfectly to the unknown and building confidence through repetition and trust.
Closing his remarks, Boris offered words of encouragement to a room filled with filmmakers who had fought hard to reach Sundance. He urged attendees not to be discouraged by the distance between their ideals and reality, in art or in life, and acknowledged both the beauty and the difficulty of finding one another in an increasingly disconnected world.
Following the keynote, the Producers Awards were formally announced. The Amazon MGM Studios Fiction Producers Award was presented to Apoorva Guru Charan for Take Me Home, which is premiering in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Charan previously produced Joyland, which premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Feature. Take Me Home also received the Tribeca Festival AT&T Untold Stories Prize.
The Amazon MGM Studios Nonfiction Producers Award went to Langford for Who Killed Alex Odeh?, premiering in the U.S. Documentary Competition. Langford’s body of work includes The Body Politic, which aired on PBS’ POV in 2024 and earned an Emmy nomination, as well as Check It and Kandahar Journals.
Additional speakers at the celebration included Sundance Institute leaders Michelle Satter, Kristin Feeley, Shira Rockowitz, and Maria Clement, as well as Rachel Kiner Lucas, Senior Acquisitions Executive at Amazon MGM Studios.
The Sundance Institute Producers Program continues to be supported by a broad coalition of philanthropic and industry partners, reinforcing the Festival’s long-standing commitment to producers as essential architects of independent cinema.
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