Luke Lorentzen, alum and 2022-23 lecturer in the Department of Art & Art History, is this year's winner of the Sundance Directing Award: U.S. Documentary, for his latest feature-length documentary A Still Small Voice. Here is what the Sundance U.S. Documentary jury had to say:
This film is a deep dive into grief and the complications of mourning. It has a rigorous and unflinching lens that holds steadfast to the cinematic language the director chose for the film. The Directing Award: U.S. Documentary goes to Luke Lorentzen, A Still Small Voice.
Lorentzen graduated from Stanford in 2015 with a BA in Film & Media Studies. He returned to campus in Fall 2022 to teach FilmProd 119: Documentary Cinematography. His previous feature-length documentary Midnight Family premiered in 2019 at Sundance, where it won the Special Jury Award for Cinematography. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Best Documentary Oscar and was a New York Times Critics’ Pick. Luke’s other work as a director and cinematographer includes the Netflix original series, Last Chance U, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Serialized Sports Documentary.
Last year's Sundance Directing Award: U.S. Documentary went to another Stanford alum, Reid Davenport (MFA '16) for his debut feature I Didn't See You There. In 2020 it was awarded to Natalia Almada, Assistant Professor in the Stanford MFA Documentary Film program, for her film Users.
