How Walter Thompson-Hernández Turned His Short Film Into a Sundance Hit: 'The Story Needed a Bigger Home'

How Walter Thompson-Hernández Turned His Short Film Into a Sundance Hit: 'The Story Needed a Bigger Home'

One of the most satisfying things you can see at Sundance Film Festival is a writer-director making their way through he short-film-to-feature pipeline. This phenomenon can be seen all the time, whether through historical examples like “Whiplash” and “The Babadook” or 2026 festival entries like “The Musical” and “Union County.” This year, one of the festival’s most fascinating debuts, “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” started in much the same way. Af…

If I Go Will They Miss Me Sundance Review — Lyrical, Moving Film Is This Year's Hidden Gem

While a lot of the buzz at the Sundance Film Festival is often dominated by a few star-studded films, there are still opportunities to find a true indie breakout. If I Go Will They Miss Me is the hidden gem of this year’s Sundance, heralding Walter Thompson-Hernandez as a poetic force to be reckoned with in the next generation of cinema. What is If I Go Will They Miss Me about? If I Go Will They Miss Me follows a twelve-year-old boy who struggle…

"If I Go, Will They Miss Me" - Sundance 2026 Film Review

Walter Thompson-Hernández delivers an instantly essential piece of Los Angeles cinema with this father-son drama set in Watts. The post Sundance 2026 Review: “If I Go Will They Miss Me” Delivers an Intricate and Exquisite Homecoming appeared first on The Moveable Fest.

Sundance Review: If I Go Will They Miss Me Finds Poetic Beauty in Coming of Age

Finding poetic beauty in the quotidian, Walter Thompson-Hernández’s If I Go Will They Miss Me centers on coming of age in housing projects of southern Los Angeles. It’s a way of life often depicted with a grittiness that favors do-or-die intensity, yet this emerging director of great promise takes an opposite approach. One where dreams of flight are always on the mind as the planes coming in and out of nearby LAX are constantly passing above. Gr…