First Annenberg Film Fellows Announced
On the eve of the annual summer Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs, the Institute announced the selection the inaugural class of the Annenberg Feature Film Program. As Annenberg Fellows, Aditya Assarat, Sterlin Harjo, Emily Hubley, Kazuo Ohno, and Alex Rivera will receive extended support throughout the development of their specific feature film projects. Like the filmmakers themselves, the projects are imaginative and diverse and range from an animated feature about a young woman’s emotional journey, to a science fiction drama about Mexican migrant workers of the future.
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	Charles Annenberg Weingarten, a Trustee of the Annenberg Foundation, with Annenberg Feature Film Fellows at the annual Sundance Institute Celebrates Risk-Takers in the Arts benefit gala. Pictured from left are Fellow Kazuo Ohno, Charles Annenberg Weingarten, Fellow Emily Hubley, and Fellow Alex Rivera.
	Annenberg Fellow Aditya Assarat works with actors at the Lab on the set of his feature film project, HI-SO. Assarat is one of three Annenberg Fellows currently in residence at the Institute’s Filmmakers Lab, which runs through June 24 at Sundance Village in Utah.

Postcard from Cannes: Sundance/NHK Film Wins Awards
The Sundance/NHK Award is presented each year by the Sundance Institute and the Japanese public broadcasting network NHK to provide emerging international filmmakers with assistance in the development of their next screenplays. In 2003, the Award was presented to filmmakers Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll to develop Whisky (Uruguay), a film that recently received honors at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Whisky tells the story of a 60 year-old factory owner as he pretends to be married to one of his employees when his more successful brother comes to visit. Old wounds reappear between the siblings when the visiting brother and the fake wife engage in a subtle yet desperate game of seduction.

Chieko Murata coordinates the Sundance/NHK Award for NHK, and sent this postcard from Cannes with a first-hand account of the filmmakers receiving the news of Whisky’s awards.

The 2004 Cannes Film Festival line up also included six other films supported by the Sundance Institute, including Sebastian Cordero’s Cronicas (Ecuador), a recipient of the Sundance/NHK Award in 2002, and Simone Bitton’s Wall (France/Israel), a project supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund. Three films shown at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival went on to screen at Cannes, including Walter Salles’ Motorcycle Diaries (U.S.A./Argentina/Chile/Peru), Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (U.S.A), and Nicole Kassell’s The Woodsman (U.S.A).

Theatre Lab Projects Figure Prominently in Awards Season
Each spring, the Tony Awards mark the official end of the theatre awards season in New York. This year, four plays supported by the Institute’s Theatre Program figured prominently among the winners of a wide range of distinguished awards and honors, including the Tonys.

Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife was honored with a total of ten awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. The GLAAD Media Awards named the production Outstanding New York Broadway and Off-Broadway Play, and the Lucille Lortel Awards named it Best Solo Show. The play’s star, Jefferson Mays, was recognized with the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, the Obie Award for Best Performance, a Theatre World Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, and the Outer Critic Circle Award for Solo Performance. Director Moises Kaufman received the Obie for Direction.

Martin Moran received a Special Citation from the Obie Awards for The Tricky Part. The Obies also recognized Jayne Houdyshell for her performance in Lisa Kron’s Well.

Regina Taylor’s Crowns was well-received in Washington, D.C., receiving four Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Resident Musical which recognizes excellence among musicals produced by local resident theatres in Washington, D.C. The Helen Hayes Awards also recognized Regina Taylor for Outstanding Direction, William F. Hubbard for Outstanding Musical Direction, and Lynda Gravett for Outstanding Supporting Actress.

Seven Projects Invited to Annual Theatre Lab
A solo approach to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a play about familial bonds by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and an exploration of Beethoven’s later life are among the seven projects that will be developed during the Institute’s annual Theatre Lab this summer. The Lab expands this year to include international artists among the slate of emerging and established playwrights, directors, and actors who will attend the program.
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Four Documentaries Selected for First-Ever Editing Lab
The Sundance Documentary Film Program recently announced its selection of four projects for development at its second annual Documentary Editing and Story Lab. With two films from the U.S., and one each from Mexico and Israel, the Lab projects represent a broad range of domestic and international stories.
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World Cinema Competition Added to 2005 Sundance Film Festival
International films now have a new, competitive forum at the Sundance Film Festival. The Festival recently announced that it will launch its first-ever World Cinema Competition for the 2005 event. Running parallel to the Independent Feature Film Competition for U.S. films, World Cinema Competition jurors will present awards to films in two categories: Dramatic and Documentary. The World Cinema Competition will introduce U.S. audiences and industry to new trends in international film, and provide a platform to acknowledge international filmmakers whose work influences the global independent film community.

The Canadian film Seducing Doctor Lewis was part of the Festival’s World Cinema offerings in 2004. It opens in U.S. theatres on June 25.

Call for Entries: 2005 Sundance Film Festival
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, scheduled to run January 20-30, 2005 in Park City, Utah. This year, Festival programmers are actively focused on securing world premieres from U.S. and international filmmakers. The 2005 Festival will present roughly 120 feature-length films in seven distinct categories.

16 narrative films and 12 documentaries will compete in the newly created World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions. To be eligible films must be U.S. premieres, though world premieres will be granted special consideration. To be eligible for the long-standing American Dramatic and Documentary Competitions films must be prepared to have their world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

International and American films not selected for their respective Competitions are eligible for the Festival’s other categories, including Premiere, Park City at Midnight, and Frontier. American films are also eligible for the American Spectrum section.

International and American films not selected for their respective Competitions are eligible for the Festival’s other categories, including Premiere, Park City at Midnight, and Frontier. American films are also eligible for the American Spectrum section. The Festival presents a separate competition for short films which are selected to screen before feature-length films at the Festival.

Click here to learn more about submitting a film to the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Voters Select 2004 Sundance Online Film Festival for Webby Award
When the 8th annual Webby Awards were announced on May 12, the Sundance Online Film Festival found itself among the thirty Web sites honored with a Webby People’s Voice Award. The annual awards honor the best of the Web in a wide variety categories, including commerce, news, film, and others.

Members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences nominated five sites in the film category, and selected the Fog of War (U.S.A.) site to receive the juried Webby Award. An online community of 175,000 voters determined the winners of the People’s Voice Awards.

The Online Festival was in good company among the nominees, which included the Web sites of three Festival films: Spellbound (U.S.A.), Dogville (Denmark/Sweden/U.K./France/Germany), and The Dreamers (Italy).

Sundance Outdoor Film Festival Presents Free Utah Screenings
This summer Utah residents and visitors can catch some of the most memorable films to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in recent years. The Sundance Outdoor Film Festival presents a diverse selection of films – ranging from tales of mountain folk music to legendary heavyweight contests. The weekly outdoor screening series runs July 7 – August 23 in Salt Lake City, Park City, and at Sundance Village. In Salt Lake City each feature length film is preceded by a five-minute short documentary film created by a student from the 2003 class of Reel Stories, an annual three-week youth workshop in documentary filmmaking offered by the Institute and Spy Hop Productions.

All films begin at dusk (between 8:30 – 9:00 p.m.) and are free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not required. The complete Sundance Outdoor Film Festival schedule follows. Click on the underlined titles for full descriptions of each film.

Salt Lake City Venue: Gallivan Center, 239 S. Main St.
Park City Venue: City Park on Park Avenue