Sundance Institute and Picturehouse announced tonight that the 2022 Sundance Film Festival: London's Audience Favourite award is presented to Brian and Charles directed by Jim Archer. The film is written by David Earl and Chris Hayward, produced by Rupert Majendie and the executive producers are Damian Jones, Lauren Dark and Mary Burke.  

Meet Brian -- a lonely, luckless inventor who takes on his most ambitious project yet. Enter Charles -- Brian's extraordinary masterpiece – an artificially intelligent robot made from odds and ends, including an old washing machine, who has an inexplicable obsession with cabbages.  Together, Brian and Charles is a heartwarming and entertaining tale about friendship, family, finding love, and letting go. 

Brian and Charles  had its UK premiere at Sundance Film Festival: London following its World Premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A. Festival-goers voted in the thousands for their favourite films across the four-day event at Picturehouse Central for this Audience Favourite Award.

The Sundance Film Festival: London took place from 9 to 12 June 2022 at Picturehouse Central, presenting twelve feature films from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A., selected for London by the Sundance Institute programming team in collaboration with Picturehouse. Alongside the feature films, the festival showcased two short film programmes, a surprise film, an exclusive industry programme and, for the first time ever, a new podcast strand with live audiences.

Numerous filmmakers and actors attended the festival to introduce their films and participate in audience Q&As, including Sophie Hyde, Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack for the UK premiere of Good Luck To You, Leo Grande; Julie Ha and Eugene Yi for their documentary Free Chol Soo Lee; Andrew Semans for his psychological thriller Resurrection starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth; Adamma and Adanne Ebo for Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul which stars Regina Hall and Sterling K Brown; producer Simon Chinn and director Ed Perkins for Princess Diana documentary The Princess; director Joe Hunting for We Met In A Virtual Reality; director Max Walker-Silverman for his feature debut A Love Song; Sara Dosa for her documentary Fire of Love and director Hanna Bergholm for her feature debut Hatching. The festival closed on Sunday 12 June with the UK premiere screening of Jim Archer's feature Brian and Charles, presented by Time Out. Actors David Earl and Charles Hayward also attended the premiere. 

The surprise film was revealed as the highly anticipated Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijn (Instinct) who travelled to London to present the film personally. The American black comedy-slasher film had its World Premiere at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas earlier this year and stars Amandla Stenberg (Dear Evan Hanson, The Hunger Games), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Myha'la Herrold (HBO's Industry), Chase Sui Wonders (HBO's Generation), Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby), Lee Pace (The Hobbit Trilogy) and Pete Davidson (The King of Staten Island, Saturday Night Live).

The festival's first dedicated Industry Programme successfully ran alongside the festival's public screenings and events. During four days of industry-focused talks and events, this robust strand  welcomed hundreds of members of the UK film industry to build their personal networks, understand industry trends, discover new work and share their own unique storytelling passions with other independent filmmakers. Each industry passholder had exclusive access to more than fifteen industry-only events during the festival, including intimate roundtable meetings, keynotes, masterclasses, themed panel discussions and daily networking drinks. The festival was thrilled to host iconic US producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films to deliver an in-person industry keynote talk. Other industry speakers included directors Prano Bailey Bond, Aneil Karia and Rubika Shah; producers John Battsek, Ameenah Ayub Allen and Mary Burke; and executives including Eve Gabereau of Modern FIlms, Danny Perkins of Elysian, Eva Yates of BBC Film and Farhana Bhula of Film4, amongst dozens more.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival: London is supported by: Presenting Partner – Adobe. Lead Partner – Kia. Supporting Partners – Argo, State of Utah and XRM. Drinks Partner – MOTH.  Media Partners – Time Out and Scala Radio. Hotel Partner – The Edwardian.

The Industry Programme partners are: BBC Film, BFI and BFI NETWORK, BIFA, Dark Matter, DCM, Doc Society, Film4, Film London, London Film School, Movio, Nowness, ScreenSkills, Sundance Ignite and Together Films. Media Partner – Screen International.