Spotlight: Mastering Performance with Writer/Director Joachim Trier (SENTIMENTAL VALUE)
About this Spotlight
Spotlights feature conversations with high-profile film and television industry professionals who share helpful advice and insights on their career experiences and creative processes.
Join Sundance Collab for this exclusive conversation with Joachim Trier, the director and co-writer of the upcoming film Sentimental Value.
The emotionally layered family drama premiered to critical and audience acclaim at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. This is Trier’s sixth feature film and sixth collaboration with co-writer Eskil Vogt. His previous film with Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World, which screened at the 2022 Sundance FIlm Festival, earned Reinsve the Best Actress award at the 2021 Festival de Cannes, as well as a BAFTA and two Academy Award nominations.
In this interactive session, we will explore Trier’s body of work as a writer/director and his relationships with his close collaborators, including his editor, sound designer, co-writer and production designer. Trier will discuss the setting of Oslo in several of his films, the relationship he creates between location and actor, the complex character dynamics he explores in his work, and capturing exceptional cinematic moments in ordinary life. Don’t miss this chance to hear this master of Norwegian cinema discuss one of his most complex films to date.
Sentimental Value will be in theatres in limited release November 7, 2025.
SpotlightTeam
Joachim Trier
Joachim Trier is an Norwegian-Danish director and screenwriter whose six feature films have all received widespread critical and box office acclaim. From the beginning of his career, his work has enjoyed global recognition, starting with his debut feature REPRISE (2006), which won the Discovery Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. His second film, OSLO, AUGUST 31ST (2011), has since attained cult status in several countries.
Four of Trier’s films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, three of them in the Main Competition, including SENTIMENTAL VALUE (2025), which was awarded the Grand Prix. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (2021) earned Renate Reinsve the Best Actress Award at Cannes and went on to receive two Academy Award nominations (Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay), two BAFTA nominations (Best International Film and Best Actress), and was named Best Foreign Language Film by the New York Film Critics Circle.
Trier is the most-awarded director in the history of Norway’s Amanda Awards, and four of his films - including SENTIMENTAL VALUE - have been submitted as Norway’s official Oscar entry. SENTIMENTAL VALUE marks his sixth collaboration with co-writer Eskil Vogt and his second with Reinsve. The film is on track to double the French admissions of THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD and is approaching its record-breaking success in Norway. It has already been selected for numerous major festivals, in addition to Cannes, such as Karlovy Vary, Telluride, San Sebastián, the New York Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival.
Erica Elson
Moderator | Digital Course & Event Producer
Erica Elson is a Producer, Writer and Educator based in the mountains outside Los Angeles. Her short film, WING NIGHT, premiered at Method Fest in Los Angeles. She is the co-author of the book THE AWKWARD HUMAN SURVIVAL GUIDE and co-hosted a podcast by the same name on the 5by5 network for five years. Elson's articles have been published by HuffPost, Lifehacker, and Reader's Digest. Prior to working in education, she worked in television development and writers’ rooms such as VH1’s HINDSIGHT, where she had the chance to write for the spinoff web series PLANET SEBASTIAN.
Elson joined the Sundance Collab team in October 2021 and produces courses, Master Classes, and events in the areas of screenwriting, television writing, directing, producing, and documentary filmmaking. She has moderated conversations with Sofia Coppola, Richard Linklater, Alexander Payne, and Susannah Grant, among others.
Prior to Sundance, Elson was the Thesis Production Supervisor at the American Film Institute for five years. She oversaw several award-winning graduate thesis films, notably the 2021 BAFTA student film winner APART, TOGETHER and the 2023 Sundance Film Festival short WE WERE MEANT TO. While at AFI, Elson developed a passion for sustainable production and created the Green Film School Alliance, which includes forty schools on four continents. She holds a BA in Communication and Film Studies from Concordia University and an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute.