First Annenberg Film Fellows Named
Following the launch of the Annenberg Film Fellows Program in April, the Institute recently announced the selection of the first “class” of Annenberg Fellows – Aditya Assarat, Sterlin Harjo, Emily Hubley, Kazuo Ohno, and Alex Rivera. Drawn from the pool of filmmakers supported by the Institute’s Feature Film Program, Annenberg Fellows receive extended support over a two-year period throughout the development of their specific feature film projects.

“The Feature Film Program has long offered residencies, creative and business support, and contributed production services to emerging filmmakers,” says Feature Film Program Director Michelle Satter. “The Annenberg grant affords us the resources to provide financial support in the form of assistance grants at critical stages in a film’s development.”

Annenberg Fellow Aditya Assarat is currently in residence at the Feature Film Program’s Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs to develop his first feature film, HI-SO. “The financial worth of the award is obviously important,” he explains. “It can help with the early stages of casting and pre-production.

“But there are also significant ramifications beyond that. When you’re starting a project, it’s important to have some investment at the outset. The Annenberg Fellowship has this kind of invisible worth that’s actually more important because it encourages others to take an interest, and possibly invest,” he says.

An experienced short filmmaker, Assarat appreciates the value of a program that provides both financial and creative resources. “In my real life, I spend 90% of my time discussing finances,” he says. “At Sundance, it’s the opposite and I have a chance to focus on the creative side. Sundance reminds us all that filmmaking is an art, and it gives us the time and space to explore that.”

At the Labs Assarat is joined by Sterlin Harjo and Kazuo Ohno, also Annenberg Fellows developing their first feature films. Harjo’s project is titled Four Sheets to the Wind, and Ohno is developing Mr. Crumpacker and the Man From the Letter. Rounding out the first Annenberg class are Emily Hubley and Alex Rivera, both alumni of the Feature Film Program. Rivera hopes to begin production on his project, The Sleep Dealer this fall. Hubley will soon enter pre-production on her first feature film, The Toe Tactic.

“It’s very easy to want to throw in the towel, especially when the rest of the world isn’t objecting,” Hubley confides. She says that being named an Annenberg Fellow strengthened her resolve during the lengthy process of writing and making a film. “At times, it can feel as if your spine is breaking and Sundance comes along and puts the rod back in. Sundance is the rod in your spine. That’s what the Annenberg Fellowship is, too.”

The Annenberg Film Fellows Program was created in April, 2004 by a $5 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation to the Sundance Institute. Each year, up to five participants or alumni of the Feature Film Program are selected to be Annenberg Fellows and are supported as they partake in different aspects of the Feature Film Program, including the Filmmakers Lab, Screenwriters Labs, Film Music Lab, Producers Conference, Screenplay Readings, and ongoing creative and business guidance.

	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).

Completed Projects
After premiering at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival, Joshua Sternfeld’s Winter Solstice (U.S.A., 2001 January Screenwriters Lab) was picked up for distribution by Paramount Classics. Yesim Ustaoglu’s Waiting for the Clouds (Turkey, Screenwriters Lab, 2002 Sundance/NHK Award) received it’s premiere at the 2004 Istanbul Film Festival, where it was awarded a Special Jury Prize.

In Production
Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad recently began production in the West Bank on Paradise Now (U.S.A., 2003 Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs).

In Pre-Production
The latest project developed at a Feature Film Program Lab to move into pre-production is Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know (U.S.A., 2003 Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs). The film, to be produced by Mark Silverman Fellowship winner Gina Kwon, will start production this summer with a cast that includes July and John Hawkes (Carnivale).

Derick and Steven Martini will soon begin production on their feature directorial debut Lymelife (U.S.A., 2001 Filmmakers and Screenwriters Lab), which stars Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rory Culkin, Cynthia Nixon, and Timothy Hutton.

Scheduled to begin production in July is Laurie Collyer’s Shall Not Want (2001 Filmmakers and Screenwriters Labs), to be produced by Lemore Syvan, and to star Maggie Gyllenhaal. Andrucha Waddington’s House of Sand (2004 Sundance/NHK Award winner) will begin production in July with Leonardo Monteiro de Barros producing

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. During the three-week program, 14 theatre fellows (playwrights and directors) will collaborate with actors, and a group of creative advisors and dramaturgs to address challenges and issues specific to each of their new works.

“For the first time, we’ve invited international theatre artists to attend the Lab,” says Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Theatre Program. “Four international theatre artists will join ten Fellows from the U.S. at the Lab. The plays these Fellows bring to Sundance represent a broad range of subject matter and a diverse approach to creating new work.”

Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War represents a classic well-made text-based play, that Himberg describes as “in the style of Chekhov.” Directed by Carey Perloff, the play tells the story of a Japanese-American couple returning to San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood after being interned during World War II. During their absence, the African American community has moved into the area and a flourishing jazz scene developed.

“My aunt owned a hardware store in Japantown during this time and I remember her telling me that Billie Holliday would come into the store,” Gotanda explains. “When Japanese Americans returned to the old neighborhood, there was a cross-over period in which the two cultures rubbed up against each other. I am fascinated by this landscape and I want this play to be a snap shot of post-World War II, especially on the margins of society. I want to tell a story from this period that you don’t usually hear.”

Gotanda feels that the Lab offers an opportunity, to “explore how simultaneity of action can work in a concrete way. The foreground action may be a secondary rhythm and the background action may be primary so I want to explore how these two actions can fit within a cohesive visual rhythm. The only way to develop that is to get on our feet and see how it comes together.”

At the Lab, Gotanda will work towards incorporating these scenes into a single, unified piece by collaborating with a team of creative advisors that includes Zelda Fichandler (head of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Acting Program), playwright Marsha Norman, director Oskar Eustis, and dramaturgs Janice Paran, Eric Rosen, and Mame Hunt.

One of the world’s most talked-about theatre artists, Warsaw-based Kryszystof Warlikowski brings to the labDreambody (working title), a play adapted from the writings of Dr. Arnold Mindell. Drawing from a broad range of sources, such as Mindell’s case studies and Grimm’s fairytales, Warlikowski’s play explores the study of the mind/body connection.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Beth Henley and director Lisa Peterson bring Ridiculous Fraud to the program. A comedy set in New Orleans, the play tells the story of three grown brothers and the bonds and rivalries between them in the shadow of their father who is serving time after being convicted of fraud.

World Thrown Tizzy is the project of playwright Joe Hortua and director Les Waters. The play traces the stories of three sets of men as they confront their relationship to aging, death and loneliness.

Moises Kaufman’s latest project with the working title of Variations on a Theme explores the creative process of Ludwig von Beethoven as he composed The Diabelli Variations.

From Britain, actor/conceiver Stephen Dillane and director Travis Preston bring Macbeth Quintet. Dillane’s solo performance of Shakespeare’s text is accompanied by music by Vinny Golia as played by a live quartet of musicians.

Travelogues: Passing Strange is the project of the composer and writer Stew. A project that originated as a work of spoken word and music, this is the story of a young man whose search for belonging takes him from the African American middle class culture into various bohemias. The piece incorporates a live band, dance, video, slides and song.

Four Documentaries Selected for First-Ever Editing Lab
The Sundance Documentary Film Program recently announced its selection of projects for its first-ever Documentary Editing and Story Lab. Seven filmmakers whose projects have previously received funding from the Sundance Documentary Fund were invited to participate in the five-day program at Sundance Village in Utah. Director/producer/editor Mark Becker, director Mercedes Moncada with editor Vivana Garcia-Berné, director Hank Rogerson with editor Victor Livingston, and director Shiri Tsur with producer Avi Banon will attend the Labs.

“For some time now, we’ve been looking to complement the financial assistance provided by the Fund with creative support,” explains Diane Weyermann, Director of the Documentary Film Program. “In documentaries, editing is where the story is found. It’s in that part of the process that the structure and the narrative emerge. We’ve identified editing as one of the areas in which feedback and professional guidance could be most beneficial to the filmmakers. Ultimately, we just want to help filmmakers make the best films that they can.”

Mark Becker’s documentary Romantico is one of the four projects invited to participate in the program. “Sundance is a real resource for independent documentary filmmakers who are so often alone in their process,” he says. “Documentaries have so much nuance that you really need some outside perspective. Once you have some feedback, you can move forward with more confidence.”

At the Labs, Becker and the other Fellows will receive feedback from creative advisors, including editors Alex Cooke, Jean-Philippe Boucicaut, Kate Amend, and Richard Hankin, and directors Robb Moss and Vikram Jayanti.

Becker’s first feature-length documentary, Romantico follows two Mexican musicians who left their homes in Salvatierra, Mexico and immigrated without documents to San Francisco. When Becker encountered them, they were roaming between the many restaurants of San Francisco playing romantico music for tips in order to support their wives and children in Mexico.

“This actually started out as a ten-minute film about musicians in San Francisco’s Mission district, and their itinerant lives,” he explains. “But within the first week of filming, one of the musicians suddenly felt compelled to go back to Mexico to see his mother who was quite ill. All of the sudden I had lost my main character and I was forced to re-think the entire film. I had to ask myself, ‘Should I go to Mexico?’ And I decided that I should.”

At that point, the film that Becker had conceived as a ten-minute short obviously took a different turn. Over the course of the three years that he has spent working on the film, Becker has worked entirely alone, serving as the film’s director, producer and editor.

“Between grant writing, research, production work, and taking on other jobs, I’ve been pulled in about one thousand directions so I haven’t had the time to really concentrate on editing,” he says.

Becker and the six other Fellows will arrive at the Lab with a rough cut of their films, and will focus on selected scenes, concentrating on story, character development and dramatic structure. They will work closely with the creative advisors who will also discuss the films and evolving rough cuts.

“I have a total of about ten hours of film, which is not a lot of footage for a 70-80 minute film. Shooting film - rather than video - forces you to shoot in a certain way. You have to be mindful of the editing process. I’ve been trying to figure out the structure of the film as I go along. A second set of eyes will be extremely helpful in making sure that the editing makes the film feel the way I want it to.”

At the Lab, director Mercedes Moncada (Mexico) and editor Viviana Garcia-Berné will join Becker to work on editing her documentary The Immortal. Moncada’s film tells the stories of twin brothers from Nicaragua who fought on opposite sides of the contra war during the 1980’s and their attempts to reconcile with each other in a divided and devastated country.

Shakespeare Behind Bars is the project of director Hank Rogerson (U.S.A.) and editor Victor Livingston. Rogerson’s film documents the members of an all-male Shakespeare company at a Kentucky prison who confront their pasts and futures as convicts while rehearsing and performing a full production of The Tempest.

From Israel, director Shiri Tsur and producer Avi Banon bring On the Objection Front – A Personal Journey to the Lab. In this documentary, Tsur presents the stories of high-ranking officers in elite units of the Israeli military who refuse to serve in the occupied territories and are willing to voice their objections.

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 the Sundance Outdoor Film Festival presents some of the most memorable work to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in recent years. The free weekly outdoor screening series runs July 7 – August 23 in Salt Lake City, Park City, and at Sundance Village. Films begin at dusk (between 8:30 – 9:00 p.m.).

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

Following are descriptions of each of the films presented during the run of the Outdoor Film Festival.

Week One
When We Were Kings, rated PG
Directed by Leon Gast, this Academy Award-winning documentary had its world premiere at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Prize for Artistic Merit. This remarkable film chronicles the 1974 Muhammad Ali-George Foreman heavyweight boxing match in Zaire. Known as the “rumble in the jungle,” the bout was more than a fight; It was an event that marked the beginning of a new age of black culture and identity. Gast and co-editor Taylor Hackford used never-before seen images to create a fascinating discourse on what it meant to be black in America during a tumultuous time.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Me and My Mustache, directed by Jordan Vance, explores friendship, commitment, and personal strength through the story of John Hinton, a Viet Nam Air Force Pilot, who made a promise that he’s kept for 30 years.
And
From Somalia to Salt Lake, directed by Mohamed Alinur, a personal film that explores the filmmaker’s life as he moves from his home in war-torn Somalia to his new home in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Week Two
The Secret of Roan Inish, rated PG
Directed by indie film legend John Sayles, The Secret of Raon Inish screened at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. The film is a rich and atmospheric Celtic fairy tale, set in the wilds of Ireland’s rugged northwest coast, where we meet feisty 10-year old Fiona Coneelly. Fiona has been sent to live with her grandparents in a tiny fishing village in post-WW II County Donegal. There she and her older cousin Eamon learn about their family’s folkloric past, particularly the fable of a selkie, a mythical sea creature that is half seal, half human. This is a film of universal appeal and is sure to please all audiences.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Voices Beyond the Barn, directed by Lauren Brown, is a documentary about animal rights that focuses on the Faith Ching Animal Sanctuary in Salt Lake City.

Week Three
Songcatcher, rated PG-13
Directed by Maggie Greenwald, Songcatcher screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. In 1907, musicologist Doctor Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) leaves the male-dominated environment of academia and heads to Appalachia to study the music of the area. She soon discovers that the folk songs of Scotland and Ireland have been preserved and passed on through generations of the secluded Appalachian residents. These fiercely insular people are protective of their mountain ways and are wary of the doctor and her motives until she meets Tom (Aidan Quinn), a rough local musician. Songcatcher’s haunting music is raw and moving, and the songs complement the glorious setting of the Appalachians. The film presents a powerful portrait of the age-old struggle between progress and preservation.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Measure of Success, directed by Melissa Mullen, is a series of interviews with street musicians in which Mullen examines their ideas of success. The musicians lead the filmmaker to reflect and to re-evaluate her own notions of success.

Week Four
Real Woman Have Curves, rated PG-13
Directed by Patricia Cardoso, Real Women Have Curves received the Dramatic Audience Award at the 2002 Festival. The performances of America Ferrera and Lupe Ontiveros were also recognized with Special Jury Prizes for Acting. Real Women Have Curves is a humorous and warm look at a Mexican American teenage girl who is coming of age in a boiling cauldron of cultural expectations, class constrictions, family duty and her own personal aspirations.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Not Just Another Pretty Face, directed by Jessica Shurtleff, is a behind the scenes exploration of beauty pageants and the hard work that the talented contestants put in to them.

Week Five
One Night The Moon, Not rated
Directed by Aboriginal filmmaker Rachel Perkins, One Night The Moon is an award-winning musical that was screened at the 2002 Festival. Set in 1932, this is an eloquently sung true story of a curious little girl lured into the rugged Australian Outback by a hypnotizing moon. When the police suggest that an Aboriginal tracker lead the search effort, the girl’s father insists that no Aboriginal is to set foot on his land. Instead, he gathers together as many white men as he can find to search the desolate plains for his child. Their search produces no results, and the girl’s mother finally enlists the Aboriginal tracker to find her daughter.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Ofa He Lei ~ The Love of the Lei, directed by Michael Kinikini, is a personal film about self expression and cultural diversity, which explores public policy regarding Pacific Islander’s cultural tradition of the lei.

Week Six
Kolya, rated PG-13
Screens in Czech with English Subtitles
Winner of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1997, Kolya had its U.S. premiere at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Jan Svêrák, Kolya is set in 1989 Prague as it is occupied by the Russians and is on the brink of enormous political changes. A once-renowned cellist, Frantisek Louka is convinced to marry a beautiful Russian who needs Czech papers. Once the marriage is official, everything changes and Frantisek is left with a five-year old boy – Kolya. Kolya is a warm and funny portrait of man who, as the Iron Curtain crumbles around him, experiences a revolution of his own.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
El Otro Lado de America ~ The Other Side of America, directed by Sonia Caraveo, tells the story of one Mexican immigrant who crossed the border illegally in search of a better life in the United States.

Week Seven
Bend It Like Beckham, PG-13
Directed by Gurinder Chadha, Bend It Like Beckham was an international hit that screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Bend It Like Beckham is an enjoyable coming of age film that follows a young Indian girl who has a passion for soccer and for British soccer superstar David Beckham. Her traditional family doesn’t share her passion and she is forced her to hide and limit her soccer playing to pickup games in the park – until she’s asked to join a competitive team and has to choose between tradition and her beloved sport.

In Salt Lake City, preceded by:
Ice, directed by Joel Ackerman who set out to make a film about for the simplest, most obscure thing, and in the process learns how ice really can affect our lives.