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| L to R: Dawne Langford, Shane Boris and Apoorva Guru Charan. Courtesy: Sundance Institute |
Featuring a keynote from Producer Shane Boris (Navalny, Fire of Love)
Every year at the Sundance Film Festival, producers come together to celebrate and honor the independent filmmaking community of producers.
This year, at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Producers Celebration — presented by Amazon MGM Studios, held at The Park in Park City, Utah — producers of films featured in the program came together for the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards and a keynote address by Shane Boris, producer of Fire of Love, Navalny, and projects premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival including Time and Water and The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.
Winners of the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards were announced, with two $10,000 grants — one for fiction and the other for nonfiction — awarded to producers Apoorva Guru Charan (Take Me Home) and Dawne Langford (Who Killed Alex Odeh?).
Both films are premiering at the 2026 Festival. In addition to the keynote and award winners, other speakers include Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter, Kristin Feeley, Shira Rockowitz, and Maria Clement, as well as Rachel Kiner-Lucas, Senior Acquisitions Executive, from Amazon MGM Studios.
The Amazon MGM Studios Fiction Producers Award was given to Apoorva Guru Charan, producer for Take Me Home, which will premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Apoorva Guru Charan is an LA-based producer whose feature film debut, Joyland, premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Feature in 2023. Her second feature, Take Me Home, won Tribeca Festival’s AT&T Untold Stories prize.
The Amazon MGM Studios Nonfiction Producers Award was given to Dawne Langford, producer for Who Killed Alex Odeh?, which will premiere in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Dawne Langford is dedicated to producing independent documentaries, including Check It; Kandahar Journals; Finding Joseph I; The Body Politic, which aired nationally on PBS’ POV in 2024 and was nominated for an Emmy; and Who Killed Alex Odeh?.
One of the stand-out highlights in Boris's keynote speech was an emphasis on how producers can affect change in the industry. “… At the moment, what is getting me through is the company I keep. I have collaborated with some of the best producers in the world. Not only have they helped me navigate extraordinarily challenging circumstances in order to turn ideals into reals, they have made space for me to have a chance to give projects something of value. I can’t thank them enough.”
Boris's works include Emmy-nominated King Coal (2023), Academy Award–winning Navalny (2022), Academy Award–nominated Fire of Love (2022), and Academy Award–nominated The Edge of Democracy (2019).
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