Why Asian American Filmmakers Are Behind Sundance 2026’s Buzziest Titles

The history of the Sundance Film Festival is rife with iconic premieres of films from East Asian American voices — Gregg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin.” Justin Lin’s “Better Luck Tomorrow.” James Wan’s “Saw.” Chloé Zhao’s “Songs My Brothers Taught Me.” Andrew Ahn’s “Spa Night.” And in just the last few years, Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” and Celine Song’s “Past Lives.”

But in 2026, East Asian American filmmakers — and women in particular — showed up to Sundance in a major way, dominating the conversation of the last Park City fest by bringing some of the year’s buzziest titles.

Filmmakers like Stephanie Ahn, Beth de Araújo, Kogonada, Liz Sargent, Josef Kubota Wladyka and Cathy Yan brought their latest to Sundance 2026, selling out screenings and getting distributors eager to bid on their projects. And many of them drew from their own experiences for deeply personal stories of love, loss and trauma.

“When the list came out, it was like, ‘Wow, this is a lot more than even last year,’” Michelle Sugihara, executive director and CEO of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), said of the large number of films.

These filmmakers — perhaps encouraged to pick up the camera by a broader U.S. acceptance of East Asian pop culture (like 2025’s Kpop explosion) and its artists (like the new Oscars mainstay Chloé Zhao) — are the ones who found buyers, drove conversations and won awards at the festival’s latest iteration.

Korean-American filmmaker Kogonada, who debuted his new microbudget film “Zi,” told TheWrap he drew from his own feelings as part of the diaspora, a theme prevalent in many of the movies.

“I think forever I felt like, ‘Oh, that means I’m not part of any world.’ That’s probably why I feel so detached. But there is a community in the diaspora, right?” he said. “There are other people who feel that way. The irony of the paradox is that you can feel attached to those who feel detached. There is a community of people who are.”

But these filmmakers’ success extends past mere on-the-ground chatter. In an era where the Sundance market remains a shell of its former self, these are the films that are getting in buyers’ hands — and setting themselves up for a life after the fest.

The Sundance class of 2026

One of the central goals of CAPE, Sugihara said, is to ensure that Asian Pacific filmmakers don’t slip through the industry’s cracks. That came into play at Sundance 2026.

“We try to look for the voids in the industry and then where we can plug in to help people who might otherwise not be supported,” Sugihara said. “The Rising Filmmakers Fund was launched just last year. At Sundance, we made the announcement, and a year later, a film that we granted premiered.”

That film was “Josephine,” Beth de Araújo’s second feature, which went on to win both the Grand Jury and Audience awards for the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Two other films have accomplished this feat in the 2020s: Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” (nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars) and Sian Heder’s “CODA” (which won Best Picture). The film hasn’t sold yet, but distributors are circling.

In “Josephine,” Araújo created a deeply personal story about an eight-year-old girl who becomes the lone witness to a violent crime. Like the filmmaker, Josephine (played by first-time actor Mason Reeves) is half-Chinese-American, with her mother played by Gemma Chan. Araújo lends a lot of herself to the unflinching drama, even down to the clothing — at Sundance, she told TheWrap that a sweatshirt worn by Josephine in the film was actually drawn for Araújo by her own mother when she was a child.

“Her choices were very thoughtful and deliberate,” Sugihara said. “The mixed-race family, and having the victims always be Asian women, and the men were white men. Everything was just so thought out.”

CAPE assisted a few other filmmakers on the road to this year’s Sundance. Liz Sargent, a Korean-American adoptee, debuted her short film “Take Me Home” at the film festival in 2023 after participating in a CAPE Short Film Challenge. This year, Sargent returned with a feature adaptation of that short, which follows a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability who must care for her aging parents. Producer Apoorva Guru Charan won the Sundance Institute Producers Award for Fiction for her part in the film.

“I hope (Sundance) continues to have this breadth of stories,” Sugihara said. “I think that’s really important too, that the diaspora and all of the stories, and also the intersectionalities. What was so interesting this year was the number of projects that touched on the adoptee: ‘Bedford Park,’ ‘Take Me Home,’ ‘Rock Springs.’”

Stephanie Ahn’s Korean love story “Bedford Park” was acquired during the festival by Sony Pictures Classics. The film, which took home the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature, follows two Korean Americans who slowly develop a deep, emotional bond after a car crash hurdles them into each other’s orbit. Adoption plays a key role in the character development as well.

“I wanted to tell a story about a woman who had to deal with the cognitive dissonance of having to balance two cultures and what that meant for her in terms of her own relationship with herself, her relationship with others and how to deal with trauma,” Ahn told TheWrap. “My first drafts were very autobiographical, and I knew from being an editor and having worked in development and having written many other scripts, in order for the film to really resonate, you had to be willing to expand it beyond just your own story.”

“I said, OK, if I’m going to try to write one more script, it better be f–king amazing, and it better be deeply personal,” Ahn said. “I better give it my all, and it better be something that I’m never going to give up on.” 

Key talent with Asian roots also contribute to the rising tide of production. Nina Yang Bongiovi — a longtime Sundance tastemaker who produced such films as Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” and Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” — served as a producer on “Bedford Park.” Kim Parker Zox produced “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty,” a Japanese American story picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.

“It’s so important to have the ecosystem of support all around,” Sugihara said.

The Chloé Zhao effect

When University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Dean Shilpa Davé teaches Asian American film courses, she likes to remind her students of a central concept: “This is not new.”

“These filmmakers have always been around. It’s not like they haven’t. But with the advent of streaming, especially post-pandemic, there have been a lot more eyes on particularly Korean popular culture,” Davé said. “The audience and the people whose eyeballs are actually creating celebrity status and popularity are not your old-school Hollywood studios.”

The numbers show that Asian voices are indeed on the rise in American cinema, matching the increase seen at this year’s Sundance. USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative published an annual study in December tracking the filmmakers behind the 100 top U.S. box office films of 2025.

While 2025 hit a seven-year low for women behind the camera, it also saw Asian filmmakers make up 14.4% of the year’s 111 directors. Only nine women were among the top 111, six of whom were women of color. All six women of color were Asian, with five being East Asian.

This is a massive jump from the old average. Annenberg noted that, out of the filmmakers behind the 1,900 top box office films from 2007 to 2025, only 5.7% were Asian.

So why did we see so many female East Asian voices at Sundance this year? Davé believes a certain 2026 Oscar nominee helped open the door.

“It’s the Chloé Zhao effect. I think that female filmmakers are being taken seriously, in a way,” Davé said of the Oscar-winning Chinese filmmaker behind “Nomadland” and this year’s Oscar-contending “Hamnet.” “She’s shown that there are people making these really, really great films.”

Zhao developed her first feature, “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” at Sundance Institute Workshops before premiering it at the fest in 2015. A Best Picture/Best Director Oscar winner and Marvel movie soon followed, bringing us to “Hamnet” in 2025.

Davé linked Zhao’s success to a broader American acceptance of Asian art and voices, recalling when Japan first brought anime to gaming and animation.

“I think we’re seeing that in terms of filmmaking — where are we getting the creative visions and the creative stories?” she asked. “It’s people who are coming out of different relationships to the medium that aren’t what major studios want, sometimes recycling their big blockbusters. A lot of these folks, although they love having blockbusters, that’s not what their interest is. It’s more telling these stories, so you’re getting much more independent filmmakers.”

Zhao’s naturalistic approach is a hallmark of her filmmaking, both in the indie space and her Marvel film “Eternals.”

One success story encourages another. While the old guard of Sundance may have looked to films from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s for their inspiration, modern directors may instead look to newer voices. Alongside filmmakers like Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele, Davé pointed to directors like Ang Lee, Justin Lin and Zhao as the new trendsetters.

“Independent cinema, in particular, smaller cinema, they are going to be the stories that continue, and I think film festivals are going to be the key places where you are going to get people that are creating new things.”

A new era of Sundance

When Kogonada (whose first feature “Columbus” debuted at Sundace in 2017) premiered his new film “Zi” at this year’s festival, he called it his most personal project to date. The movie marked a return for the Korean American filmmaker, who made “Zi” on a micro budget after he directed 2025’s $45 million Sony feature “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.”

In “Zi,” Kogonada leant a piece of himself to his titular character — the feeling of being detached in this world. 

“I think Sundance described this film, they used the phrase ‘transitory misfits.’ I said, ‘Oh God, I want this on my tombstone,’” Kogonada said. “I think this film is for all the transitory misfits. I don’t think I’m the only one who has that kind of feeling.”

At its core, Sundance has always aimed to serve independent voices in cinema, whatever their identities may be. It’s only right that Asian American voices take a bigger place in that cinematic landscape.

“We are living in a place where we cross a lot of borders,” Davé said. “How do we find our place within and without different borders? Stories have always been key.”

The post Why Asian American Filmmakers Are Behind Sundance 2026’s Buzziest Titles appeared first on TheWrap.