Los Angeles - (AFP) - Gender identity and Iranian women are two of the main topics that will be presented at the Sundance Film Festival , which begins next month, according to its organizers Wednesday.

The festival (January 19-29), which is held in the mountains of Utah, in the western United States, returns in attendance, after two sessions that were organized remotely.

The American festival is famous for highlighting a large number of independent productions, and this year it will receive a group of Hollywood stars, most notably Anne Hathaway, Emilia Clarke, Jason Momoa and Emilia Jones, who starred in the movie “Cuda”, adapted from the French-Belgian movie “La Famie Pellet”, which won in 2022. Oscar Award for Best Film.

As for documentaries, the festival will screen "Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields", which deals with women's sexual identity through the story of actress Brooke Shields, who gained fame at the age of twelve after playing the role of a little night girl in the movie "Pretty Baby".

In addition, the two documentaries "Judy Bloom Forever" and "The Disappointment of Sherry Height" deal with the harassment that writers Judy Blum and Cher Height were subjected to, after they touched on women's sexual identity in their work.

The harassment suffered by Sherry Height prompted her to leave the United States in the nineties of the last century.

Her book, The Height Report on Cherry Height, on the female orgasm revolutionized sexual issues.

Sundance curator John Nin notes that the two documentaries allow viewers to "see history from a different point of view."

The film "Little Richard: I Am Everything" deals with the black and homosexual origins of the prominent name in the world of rock and roll during the fifties of the last century.

John Nin explains that each film provides "an opportunity to engage with history in a completely different way" through "a pioneer".

Works produced by Iranian women or others centered around them will be shown at the festival.

The documentary "Jonam" and the two feature films "The Birthing Virgin" and "Shida" deal with the history of women in Iran and expatriate women, at a time when the country is witnessing demonstrations denouncing the authorities' violence against Iranian women.