Your Monster wins audience award at Sundance London

Picturehouse and the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced that Sundance Film Festival: London’s 2024 Audience Favourite Award is presented to Your Monster, directed, produced and written by Caroline Lindy and produced by Kayla Foster. The cast features Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Meghann Fahy, Edmund Donovan and Kayla Foster.

After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming, monster living in her closet.

Your Monster had its UK premiere at Sundance Film Festival: London following its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A earlier this year.

Festival-goers voted in their thousands for their favourite films across the four-day event at Picturehouse Central for this Audience Favourite Award.

The festival ran from 6 to 9 June and had a busy line-up featuring 11 exciting feature films; the UK short film programme made up of seven shorts showcasing the best of emerging UK filmmaking talent; the dedicated Industry Talks Programme and Interactive Pitch Panel; plus three thought-provoking public talks featuring top filmmakers and industry experts.

Numerous filmmakers and actors attended the festival to introduce their films and participate in audience Q&As including: writer and director Rich Peppiatt whose Irish-language film, Kneecap opened the festival and was joined by featured rappers DJ Próvaí, Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap alongside cast members, Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Jessica Reynolds and Fionnuala Flaherty. 

Academy Award nominated director Sean Wang and producer Carlos López Estrada closed the festival with Didi (弟弟), acclaimed directors David and Nathan Zellner attended with their film Sasquatch Sunset, Chiwetel Ejiofor introduced his adaptation of Jeff Hobbs’ bestselling and critically acclaimed biography Rob Peace, director Caroline Lindy and producer Kayla Foster attended with their wholly original debut Your Monster with cast members Melissa Barrera and Meghann Fahy, director Shuchi Talati along with actor Preeti Panigrahi and cinematographer Jih-E Peng introduced their film Girls Will Be Girls, winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic and World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting presented to Panigrahi earlier this year and Thea Hvistendahl introduced her chilly, disturbing Handling the Undead from Norway, winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Original Music presented to Peter Raeburn at this year’s Festival.

Documentary filmmakers in attendance included multi-Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist, co-director Maria Bukhonina and Producer Tamir Ardon with their documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story and Never Look Away director Lucy Lawless attended the festival with producer Matthew Metcalfe.

The short film programme dedicated to UK productions consisted of seven titles and filmmakers in attendance included Xenia Glen for Alo, Yero Timi-Biu for Essex Girls, Tom Stuart for Good Boy, Aephie Chen for Mamu, Mario Radev for [S], Tajana Tokyo for Salone Love and Renee Zhan for Shé (Snake).

Furthermore, as a celebration of the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 showcased highlights of features and shorts presented over the years at the festival, including the acclaimed feature films Under the Skin and Kinky Boots, and short films from directors including Riz Ahmed for Daytimer, Romola Garai for Scrubber, Kibwe Tavares for Robots of Brixton, Stephen and Timothy Quay for Streets of Crocodiles and Joseph Pelling, Becky Sloan and Baker Terry for their short Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. Saltburn director Emerald Fennell  discussed her short film Careful How You Go with festival audiences.

This year’s Keynote Speech was delivered by Academy Award^® nominated director and producer, Carlos López Estrada (Raya and the Last Dragon, Blindspotting). More industry speakers include BFI London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson; Anna Higgs from Casarotto Ramsay & Associates; Louisa Dent from Curzon; Franki Goodwin from Saatchi & Saatchi; Alex Walton from WME; Kate Gardiner from Searchlight Pictures; Jonathan Lynch-Staunton from Rocket Science; Andrew Orr from Sky Cinema; Karina Gechtman from Anton Corp; Katie Ellen from Hanway; Mathilde Henrot from Festival Scope; Meg Thomson from Globalgate Entertainment; Danny Perkins from Elysian Film; and filmmakers including Prano Bailey Bond, Sally El Hosaini and Peter Ettedgui.