THE MOMENT
FILM
The Moment Ignites Sundance 2026: Charli XCX Turns Pop Culture Inside Out
The Moment. Aidan Zamiri & Bertie Brandes; Based on an Original Idea by Charli xcx. Premiered at Sundance 2026. Photo: “The Moment.” Still, courtesy A24.
At the Sundance Film Festival 2026, Park City becomes the stage for a bold cinematic experiment that pulses with the restless energy of contemporary pop culture. The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri and featuring Charli xcx in a self-aware, fictionalized version of herself, is set to world premiere during the festival, which runs from January 22 to February 1, 2026.
PARK CITY, UT. By Pablo Herrera
TMN® starts its coverage at Sundance 2026 with The Moment, a film that puts music, identity, and pop culture under the microscope.
The film’s debut at Sundance places it squarely within a long tradition of music-centered storytelling championed by the festival since the 1980s: films that explore not just success, but the ambition, obsession, ego, and devotion that fuel artistic lives.
Rather than following the familiar arc of a musician documentary, The Moment operates as a sharp mockumentary. It reframes fame through satire and surrealism, reflecting the fragmented reality of being an artist in an era where image, pressure, and performance are inseparable. Charli xcx’s presence is not just performative but conceptual: she becomes both subject and mirror, examining the machinery that builds and consumes pop figures in real time.
Watch what Charli xcx’s fans have to say. Video recorded at Primavera Sound, Barcelona 2025.
A Mockumentary with Teeth
Directed by Zamiri in his feature debut, The Moment blends heightened comedy with industry critique. The film imagines an alternate pop trajectory, drawing loosely from Charli xcx’s own experiences while deliberately bending reality. The result is a story less concerned with chronology than with emotional and cultural truth.
An ensemble cast including Rosanna Arquette, Alexander Skarsgård, Kate Berlant, and Rachel Sennott helps flesh out a world populated by recognizable industry archetypes, each exaggerated just enough to feel uncomfortably familiar.
Watch: Charli xcx’s performing during the Brat tour at Primavera Sound, Barcelona 2025.
A Sundance Moment, Then What Comes Next
Following its world premiere at Sundance, The Moment is scheduled for a U.S. theatrical release on January 30, 2026, while the festival is still underway. That timing underscores the confidence surrounding the film: it is positioned not as a quiet indie curiosity, but as a crossover cultural moment.
Composer A.G. Cook’s score reinforces the film’s tonal edge, echoing the experimental pop language that has defined Charli xcx’s career and influence.
In a landscape saturated with artist biopics and behind-the-scenes access, The Moment feels different. It does not ask the audience to admire stardom. It asks them to question it. That tension: between creation and consumption, sincerity and spectacle: is exactly why the film feels at home at Sundance, and why it may resonate well beyond the festival circuit.
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