BY KAREN BOSSICK

A portrait of Western photographer Barbara Van Cleve and Gus Van Sant’s psychological thriller “Dead Man’s Wire” will be among the films screened during the 2025 Sun Valley Film Festival.

The festival will be held Dec. 3-7 in Ketchum and Sun Valley.

Films announced so far include:

“HARD TWIST: THROUGH THE LENS OF BARBARA VAN CLEVE”—This documentary by Cynthia Matty-Huber traces the Western photographer’s creative life from her upbringing as a Montana ranch girl to a pioneering chronicler of women in the modern American West.

Feli Funke, who has lived in Sun Valley for 30 years, is one of the producers of the film.

“NATCHEZ”—This cinematic portrait of a Mississippi town directed by Suzzanah Herbert reckons with the town’s romanticized antebellum identity as it explores who gets to tell America’s story.

“THE DATING GAME”—Violet Du Feng’s feature movie takes viewers to China where eligible men greatly outnumber women. Watch as three bachelors join an intensive seven-day dating camp in a last-ditch effort to find love.

“THE PLAGUE”--Director Pollinger presents this thriller where a socially anxious 12-year-old is pulled into a cruel tradition at an all-boy’s water polo camp.

“DEAD MAN’S WIRE”—This film, directed by 2025 SVFF Vision Award honoree Gus Van Sant, delves into a 63-hour televised standoff that gripped the nation in 1977 when a man walked into a mortgage office in Indiana with a sawed-off shotgun wire to his hostage.

More films from this year’s lineup will be announced later.

Learn more at https://sunvalleyfilmfestival.org/.