Sundance Film Festival audiences are made up of some of the sharpest film-oriented minds around. As one of the foremost film festivals on the planet, the people sitting in those packed theaters know their movies. So when they collectively decide that a film is a standout of the festival, it’s safe to trust their judgment.

This year, they spoke loud and clear. In the premieres category, the coveted 2025 Festival Favorite Award, voted for by the audience, went to “Come See Me in the Good Light,” a documentary about Colorado Poet Laureate and Boulder County resident Andrea Gibson.

Audiences were moved by the documentary, Kim Yutani, director of programming for the festival, said in a release.

“Festivalgoers embraced the humor and heartbreak of this intimate documentary,” Yutani said.

This film is packed with love, poetry and existential gut punches. It’s a documentary about dying that’s, in the end, actually more about living.

“It speaks to art and love and reminds us what it means to be alive as we face mortality,” Yutani said in the release.

The Sundance festival carries heightened interest for the Boulder area this year, with news that the prestigious event is perceived to have outgrown its longtime home in Park City, Utah. An announcement is expected soon concerning its future host city, with festival directors weighing three finalists: Boulder, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Salt Lake City, with some events continuing to take place in Park City.

Directed by Ryan White (“Good Night Oppy,” “The Keepers”), a film crew follows Gibson and their partner Megan Falley for a year as Gibson navigates life after an incurable cancer diagnosis. Viewers follow along with not only the most intimate parts of treatment — in chemo rooms and doctor’s appointments — but also through triumphant moments, like a return to the stage after some stagnant years.

Throughout the timeline there are some pretty major — if not slightly morbid — laughs.

Backed by producer and acclaimed comedian Tig Notaro, this movie had queer icon energy written all over it as folk legend Brandi Carlile, indie darling Sara Bareilles, soccer star Abby Wambach and best-selling author Glennon Doyle all signed on as executive producers.

When launched into the poetry scene, Gibson made their mark in competitive slams, placing in multiple national and international competitions. They’ve published several written works, including “Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns,” “The Madness Vase,” “Pansy” and “Lord of the Butterflies.” Their work extends beyond the page, with spoken albums like “Yellowbird,” “Flower Boy,” “Truce” and “Hey Galaxy.” Citing influences such as Sonya Renee Taylor, Anis Mojgani and Mary Oliver, Gibson has built a devoted cult following, with hundreds of thousands of fans across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Their words, known for being unflinchingly raw and vulnerably candid, took on even greater weight in 2021 when they were diagnosed with uncurable ovarian cancer — the moment that became the heart of “Come See Me in the Good Light.”

Instead of turning inward, Gibson invited cameras inside their world to capture the complexities of living life while staring down mortality. The decision to let cameras into their most vulnerable moments, for Gibson, wasn’t taken lightly.

“From early on in my diagnosis, my deepest wish has been to turn the experience into something that could help others,” Gibson penned in a Dec. 13, 2024 Instagram post. “Still, I was shocked by how quickly and instinctively I said ‘yes.’”

The result of that “yes” is a film so powerful that, according to Notaro, you could hear the audience cry at its Sundance premiere.

“You could hear the tears as it played,” Notaro wrote in a Jan. 27 Facebook post. “But also, the comedic moments were so big and hit every beat. Making a movie like this takes a ton of compartmentalizing, but as the great Ram Dass said, ‘We’re all just walking each other home.’”

On a lighter and quite fortuitous note that points towards this project’s pure cosmic creative alignment: Gibson, Notaro and director Ryan White all showed up to the premiere at Sundance accidentally wearing the exact same outfit.

“That’s how close we all got in the making of this gorgeous film,” Notaro wrote.

Gibson has long spent their career making art that cracks people open — but they weren’t even sure they’d live to see the film’s final product.

“When we began filming, I didn’t expect to live long enough to see its completion,” Gibson shared in an Instagram post. “That longing was a quiet, constant ache in the privacy of my heart: ‘I wish, I wish, I wish I could live to see this.’”

That they not only saw it finished, but watched it win over Sundance audiences feels, as Gibson put it, “like a miracle beyond words.”

“Come See Me in the Good Light” is on its way to an even wider audience, and Gibson’s story will soon reach far beyond the nestles of the cinema and poetry world.

And if the festival’s response is any indication, it’s a story people won’t just be watching, it’s one they’ll be feeling.