2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Susanna Fogel’s Winner

Berlinale gave us Reality earlier this year and next January we think we might be seeing Winner – another project that looks at the complex turn of events for the whistleblower. Susanna Fogel hit Sundance last year with the thriller Cat Person — and now she moves into equally bizarre tonality with what is a dark-comedy biopic — her fourth feature. Emilia Jones will portray whistleblower Reality Winner – a former U.S. Air Force member and NSA contractor, served in prison after she leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Her five and a half years behind bars is the longest sentence ever given to someone charged under the Espionage Act for leaking a government document. Other players on Winner include Connie Britton, Zach Galifianakis, Danny Ramirez and Kathryn Newton. Production took place in October of last year.

Gist: Based on Kerry Howley’s 2017 New York Magazine feature that portrays a brilliant and young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the U.S. Air Force and working as a NSA contractor. Connie Britton as Reality’s mother, Zach Galifianakis as Reality’s father, Danny Ramirez as her boyfriend and Kathryn Newton as her sister.

Production Co./Producers: Amanda Phillips, Susanna Fogel / ShivHans Pictures’ Shivani Rawat and Julie Goldstein, 1Community’s Scott Budnick and Ameet Shukla.

Prediction: Premieres.

Sales: UTA Independent Film Group.