The young people featured in a Sundance world premiere documentary take on a challenge most adults wouldn’t dare attempt: public speaking. Esther, Mfaz, Sam, Noah, and Noor find a way to overcome the nerves, potential of forgetting lines or otherwise face-planting for the chance to be crowned at the National Speech and Debate Association Championships (NSDA) in the category of Original Oratory.
The journey of these teenagers from across the country is documented in Speak., directed by Jennifer Tiexiera and co-directed by Guy Mossman. The film debuted in U.S. Documentary Competition (its final in-person screening is set for Saturday at the Redstone Megaplex in Park City, Utah).
“First and foremost, it is terrifying,” Noah Chao-Detiveaux said of participating in Original Oratory, which involves crafting and delivering a speech on a personal topic. “At least for me, it never really got less terrifying. You just get a little more used to it.”
“I, personally, am deathly afraid of public speaking,” Noor Garoui told us during a panel discussion in the Deadline Studio at the Sundance Film Festival. “I wasn’t able to stand up in front of a crowd or I don’t think I would’ve even been able to do this interview if it wasn’t for public speaking.”
For Sam Schaefer, public speaking came more naturally – but that doesn’t mean it’s a breeze.
“I’ve been doing theater for as long as I can remember,” he said. “So, when I found speech and specifically Oratory, it was a bit of a shift because I wasn’t acting per se, I wasn’t in character, but I figured it out and it’s so much fun for me. The thing that takes away the fear is that I really care about what I’m saying.”
The documentary follows the high school students over the course of an academic year as they hone their performances.
“It’s 10 minutes or less in their own words, written by them, and it’s written normally [as a] from-the-heart story, and it’s supposed to change hearts and minds,” Tiexiera explained, adding that it was Mossman who got her intrigued about the film project by sending her an example of Esther Oyetunji in action.
“Very early on, he sent me Esther doing her speech her sophomore year when she became the national champion for the first time,” Tiexiera said. “It was definitely a moment where it was like hearing Obama speak for the first time and I was like, ‘This girl is so young and so brilliant.’ And yeah, we never looked back.”
Esther Oyetunji in ‘Speak.’
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Esther’s speech – marking her attempt to become the first three-time national champion in Original Oratory — centered on the ways politicians cloak their desire for power in rhetoric about protecting children. Sam took on LGBTQ representation and how nostalgia is used as a way to enforce a heteronormative worldview. Mfaz Mohamed Ali spoke to the concept of “lunchbox shame” – how kids of ethnic minority backgrounds find themselves stigmatized for customs handed down to them by their immigrant parents.
“I think that’s the power of speech and debate is that this platform, it gives all these students and all of us to share our stories in an authentic way and also have a lot of fun,” Esther told us. “Mfaz’s superpower is that she’s hilarious. Sam is a theater genius and you get to see all of us, our characters, shine through while also staying true to our message.”
Mfaz (who, by the way, has 3.4 million followers on TikTok), noted, “We’ve grown up in a world where things have not always been the greatest and we’re like, it’s time for that to change. This film just really captures all of our voices and shows how we care about these things… I say that the end of this film, we don’t just compete and leave it there. These speeches, we live them, and we try to bring what we say into the real world.”
Mossman shared, “We wanted to tell the story from the point of view of the piece that they’re writing — if you can conceive of that as the piece they’re writing as a character in and of itself — and allow the competition to be almost present but not necessarily in the foreground. What’s more important to us is to really spend time… at home with them and to try and tell a really intimate story about their lives and how it tied into the piece they’re writing.”
(L-R) Jennifer Tiexiera, Josh Gad and Guy Mossman attend the “Speak.” premiere during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival
Maya Dehlin Spach/Getty Images
Actor Josh Gad serves as an executive producer on the film. He participated in the NSDA championships in Original Oratory as a high schooler in 1998. “Josh Gad, our EP… [is] definitely a huge advocate for this and we’re very lucky to have him,” Mossman commented. “He is a joy, and these kids adore him and they idolize him because he took it as seriously as they do.”
Others who took part in NSDA competitions before achieving fame include Oprah Winfrey, Jordan Peele, Bruce Springsteen, U.S. Supreme Court justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Samuel Alito, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, John Lithgow, Kenan Thompson, James Dean, Jessica Chastain, Stephen Colbert, and many, many more prominent Americans. Speech and debate may just provide the fast track to immense success – if you can just get over those “speaking in public” nerves.
Speak. is an acquisition title at Sundance.
“Because of the nature of this film and because we had a very clear vision of what we wanted this film to be, and especially because they’re all minors, we decided to independently finance this film,” Tiexiera said. “We are hoping that we find the right home for it while we’re here at Sundance. It is up for grabs… It’s such a beautiful film and I think the biggest response we’ve gotten is just, it’s kind of what we need right now. It’s called ‘Speak.’ It could just as well be called ‘Listen,’ because that’s what these kids do so well. They listen to one another, they respect one another, they treat each other with just — they uplift one another and we’ve just somehow lost that.”
Watch the full panel discussion in the video above.
Deadline Studio at Sundance presented by Casamigos
TITLE: Speak
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Director: Jennifer Tiexiera
Co-director: Guy Mossman
Logline: Five top-ranked high school oratory students spend a year crafting spellbinding spoken word performances with the dream of winning one of the world’s largest and most intense public speaking competitions. Directors Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman take us behind the scenes of the prestigious competition that’s seen Oprah, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Josh Gad, and Brad Pitt compete.
Sales agent: WME
Panelists: Jennifer Tiexiera (director), Guy Mossman (co-director), Esther Oyetunji (subject), Mfaz Mohamed Ali (subject), Sam Schaefer (subject), Noor Garoui (subject), Noah Chao-Detiveaux (subject)