Sundance 2026 Shine Global Recap: Radical Hope, Collective Care, and Why Filmmaker Support Matters More Than Ever 

(L-R) NFMLA panelists Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz, an NFMLA alumni filmmaker and ambassador; Jessica Just, actor-producer and CEO and co-founder of Creating Creators; Alexandra Blaney, co-CEO and creative director of Shine Global; and Kylie Eaton, filmmaker and executive director of the Alliance of Women Directors at Sundance Film Festival 2026.

Attending Sundance can feel like an odd contradiction: gathering in celebration of independent film while, outside the mountains of Park City, the world feels increasingly unsteady, marked by conflict, injustice, fear, and accelerating change. And yet, inside the Filmmaker Lodge on the afternoon of Sunday, January 26, something else was palpable: collective care. Shared commitment. Radical hope.

At a moment when the film industry is undergoing profound disruption — from consolidation and shrinking opportunities to rapid technological shifts — filmmakers and nonprofit leaders came together not just to discuss how films get made, but how storytellers endure. Shine Global was honored to co-present the official panel From First Break to Lasting Impact: Building Creative Pipelines in Film & Media, alongside NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA), Alliance of Women Directors (AWD), and Creating Creators. Together, we convened an engaged Sundance audience around one urgent belief: The future of independent film depends not only on bold stories — but on the systems that sustain the artists who tell them.

Moderated by Sola Fasehun, founder of The Distribution Collective and The Diversity and Inclusion Film Festival, the panel explored what it takes to build lasting creative careers across every stage of the filmmaker journey. Panelists included Shine Global’s co-CEO and Creative Director Alexandra Blaney, Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz (NFMLA and Shine Global supported filmmaker), Kylie Eaton (AWD), and Jessica Just (Creating Creators), each sharing real-world models of support that help filmmakers thrive even as the ground shifts beneath the industry in real time.

For Shine Global, that support is a long-term commitment to harnessing the power of film to improve children’s lives. On the panel, Alexandra Blaney talked about the importance of distribution to this commitment. She explained that it’s not just launching a film, but making sure it continues reaching and inspiring audiences years later. That ongoing care, and staying in relationship with participants, filmmakers, and partners, is core to how Shine Global operates. Because when a film tackles injustice, the issue doesn’t go away when the credits roll.We also highlighted Shine Global’s Resilience Awards, which provide support to filmmakers celebrating children’s resilience while navigating an increasingly unpredictable film industry. One of 2025’s short film finalists directors, Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz, joined us on the panel and reminded the audience that sustaining artists is just as important as celebrating their premieres.

At its heart, our work is about, as Alexandra put it: “Bringing a love of movies to change the world.” And doing it alongside “amazing, good people.”

At Sundance, those good people were everywhere. From our fellow panelists on stage, to partner organizations, to advocates, and to the artists committed not only to the craft of filmmaking, but to ensuring that it has real impact on the lives of people around the world. That included inspiring Sundance films like One In a Million (following a young refugee over the course of 10 years) to the hopeful community activism story of Everybody to Kenmure Street, to the premiere of previous Resilience Award winner Edward Lovelace (Name Me Lawand)’s new film Antiheroine, we were reminded that powerful storytelling takes time and strong support systems.

In a time of turmoil, Sundance offered us something worth celebrating: a community of people who still care, who are still building, and who believe in story as a force for connection, truth, and change. With gratitude to everyone who joined us in Park City, and to our broader Shine Global community for continuing to believe in what storytelling makes possible.

Read more about the panel in MovieMaker Magazine here and watch the full recording of the panel on YouTube here.

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ABOUT SHINE GLOBAL

Shine Global is a nonprofit media company that improves the lives of children by telling powerful stories to raise awareness, promote action, and inspire change. We produce and support inspiring films and compelling content about underserved children. Through tailored distribution and outreach, we connect with our audiences in communities, classrooms, museums, and on Capitol Hill as part of a powerful engagement campaign to encourage social change.

Since our founding in 2005 by Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht, Shine Global films have won more than 100 major awards, including an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short Subject for Inocente, an Academy Award® nomination for Best Live Action Short for Anuja, and an Academy Award® nomination and two Emmys® for War/Dance. Recent films include the documentary-animation hybrid Liyana, the hit documentary The Eagle Huntress, Through Our Eyes: Homefront which is available on HBOMax, the Ariel Award winner Home Is Somewhere Else, and Comedy Against the Odds which is currently in film festivals.

ABOUT SHINE GLOBAL’S RESILIENCE AWARDS

The Shine Global Resilience Awards were created to honor films that highlight the strength, dignity, and power of children in the face of adversity. Past winners of Shine Global Resilience Awards include the feature documentaries Speak. (2025, Directed by Guy Mossman and Jennifer Tiexiera), Daughters (2024, Directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae), Name Me Lawand (2023, Directed by Edward Lovelace), and Lift (2022, Directed by David Petersen), Los Frikis (2024, written and directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz) in partnership with Nantucket Film Festival, the short Rise (2025, Directed by Jessica J. Rowlands), the short documentary Ayenda (2023, directed by Marie Margolius) in partnership with Heartland Film’s Indy Shorts International Film Festival, Okthanksbye (2023, Nicole Van Kilsdok) with ReelAbilities Film Festival, Savauges (2024, directed by Claude Barras), and Dounia – The Great White North (2024, directed by Marya Zarif and André Kadi) in partnership with the New York International Children’s Film Festival.