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“The Pod Generation” has garnered the first award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Sophie Barthes directed the sci-fi film, which stars Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor as parents whose child is being grown in a pod. The dark comedy took home the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Sundance Institute Science-in-Film initiative top cash prize of 20,000. The prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. The 2023 jury for Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize included Dr. Heather Berlin, Jim Gaffigan, Dr. Mandë Holford, Shalini Kantayya, and Lydia Dean Pilcher.

The jury shared that it selected “Sophie Barthes’ futuristic romantic comedy, ‘The Pod Generation,’ for its bold, visually-arresting depiction of a brave new parenthood in which AI and artificial wombs provide technological benefits...

The Sundance Institute Science-in-Film initiative with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation named Sophie Barthes’ The Pod Generation as this year’s Feature Film Prize winner.

In addition three artists grants went to recipients for three projects in development. The prizes were handed out at a reception following the Appetite for Construction panel at Filmmaker Lodge. The four filmmakers received a total of 70,000 in funding through the Prize and three artist grants for projects: Benjy Steinberg for The Professor and the Spy received the Sloan Episodic Fellowship, Cynthia Lowen for Light Mass Energy received the Sloan Development Fellowship, and John Lopez for Incompleteness received the Sloan Commissioning Grant.

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