Sean Baker isn't wasting any time. Fresh off Anora's Oscar buzz and Palme d'Or win, the indie auteur is already back with Sandiwara, starring Michelle Yeoh and premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.
This is how you build momentum in independent cinema. Strike while the iron is hot, before the industry forgets you made the year's best film.
Baker has spent his career exploring the margins—sex workers in Tangerine and Red Rocket, immigrant motel life in The Florida Project, and now, with Anora, a darkly comic Brooklyn fairy tale that's become this year's indie darling. He makes films about people Hollywood usually ignores, and he does it with more style and humanity than most prestige dramas manage.
According to Variety, plot details for Sandiwara remain under wraps, but casting Yeoh signals ambition. She's an Oscar winner with global recognition, which means Baker might be scaling up while (hopefully) maintaining his signature ground-level perspective.
The Berlin premiere is strategic. It's not Cannes—less prestige, less competition—but it's a major platform that could catapult Sandiwara directly into awards conversations. Baker won the Palme d'Or; now he's proving it wasn't a fluke.
What makes Baker essential is that he's never lost his edge. He could easily pivot to Netflix deals and prestige TV, but instead he keeps making micro-budget films about real people living real lives. He shoots on iPhones when necessary, casts non-actors when it serves the story, and trusts audiences to handle complexity.
Sandiwara arrives at a moment when indie cinema desperately needs wins. Streamers are cutting back on acquisitions, theatrical distribution is harder than ever, and audiences are increasingly trained to wait for streaming releases. Baker making another great film won't fix the system, but it'll remind people why it's worth fighting for.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything—except that Sean Baker is on a hell of a run, and smart money says it continues.
