Rory Kennedy has been tapped to direct the new documentary “Queen of Chess” at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the success of young Hungarian chess prodigy Judith Polgar in overcoming champion Garry Kasparov and his controlling father over a period of 15 years.
“I did a lot of research, and I was just stunned by what I read,” Kennedy said on Audible’s Variety Studio about why she felt compelled to make Polgar the subject of a documentary. “She was the No. 1 female chess player for 26 years. She was the youngest grandmaster. She broke Bobby Fischer’s record. She was the only woman to crack the top 10 chess players in the world, and that’s still true today. I’m surprised I’ve never heard of her.”
As a member of the Kennedy family, Rory continues to find her lineage at the center of headlines. Her late cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr., will soon be given the Ryan Murphy treatment in FX’s limited series “American Love Story.” The show tracks the relationship between Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. The couple died in a plane crash on their way to Rory’s wedding.
Rory Kennedy said of the series, “I don’t know if I’ll watch it or not.” “I was very close to John and I miss him every day. It’s a huge loss for our family and a huge loss for our country. They were very close to us and we are saddened by their loss. But there is an opportunity for young people who didn’t know their story to find out about it. Depending on how we make the show, it could also be a great thing for their characters, their personalities and their contributions to society. We’ll see.”
Rory Kennedy also touched on the recent loss of her cousin Tatiana Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter. Schlossberg died in December at the age of 35, shortly after chronicling her battle with blood cancer in a devastating column for The New Yorker. In it, she also advocated for expanded access to health care.
“She was a very brave and courageous person,” Rory said. “That New Yorker article touched so many people and helped people understand who she was. It was so beautiful to me because she was a special person. There was a sense of loss there… She was 35 years old. The world is a little bit worse without her.”
When asked about Schlossberg’s essay and the fact that some of her last public words were about health care advocacy, Rory responded: “There’s an urgency to what’s happening in health care in our country and around the world. Many doctors and scientists are coming together to warn us that what’s happening right now is putting the health of this country at risk. We really need to pay attention to our scientists and doctors.”
