Five hundred guests turned out at New York City’s Gotham Hall on April 21st for the Sundance Institute’s fourth annual celebration of risk-takers. Institute president and founder Robert Redford served as the gala’s honorary chair, and Stanley Tucci acted as host of the annual benefit. Honorees included Filmmaker Robert Altman, playwright Tony Kushner, and Starbucks Coffee Company Chairman Howard Schultz. The event raised nearly $850,000 toward the Institute’s work in support of independent artists working in film, theatre, and music.

In accepting the award, Tony Kushner shared his thoughts about risk, and how he sees it in relation to his own work. “If I have done risky things with my art, it’s only because like most artists, I want to entertain,” said Kushner. “And I believe truth to be more entertaining, finally, than lies.”

Click here to read a full transcript of Kushner’s speech.

	Filmmaker Robert Altman accepting the 2005 Risk-Takers Award.
	Sundance Institute Founder and President Robert Redford with Risk-Takers Award recipient, the playwright Tony Kushner.
	Risktakers Award recipient and Starbucks Coffee Company Chairman Howard Schultz with Sundance Institute Trustee Mellody Hobson and Senator Bill Bradley.
	Carlos Sandoval (co-director, Farmingville) with Sundane Documentary Program Director Diane Weyermann and Zana Briski (co-director, Born into Brothels).
	Sundance Institute Executive Director Ken Brecher with Trustees Jeanne Donovan Smith, Glenn Close, and Chairman Wally Weisman.

"Aside from the hard dollar numbers, the Sundance Film Festival generates name recognition, image enhancement and publicity that money, literally, cannot buy," said Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.

Attracting an audience of over 46,000, up 27.6% from 2004, the Festival is internationally prominent and locally popular. In addition to the direct economic activity generated by the Festival, the annual event supports tourism in Utah by attracting thousands of visitors from all over the world and increasing visibility through printed and broadcast news stories that reach an international audience of over 420 million.

Growth of the Sundance Film Festival – 1995 vs. 2005

		1995	2005
	Economic Activity	$12 million	$42.7 million
	Seats available	100,000	242,393
	Films screened	174	202
	Number of screenings	335	674
	Attendance	13,500	46,771

The Egyptian Theatre on Park City's Main Street

Elephant Palm Tree on the Sundance Online Film Festival
By Claiborne Smith
Originally published on January 29, 2005 in the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Daily Insider

London-based filmmaker Kara Miller’s Elephant Palm Tree is a 10-minute short about a former Miss Jamaica who dreams one night that she and her husband are in Africa, on their honeymoon amid the palm trees, when all of a sudden a big old elephant approaches and poops on them. Naturally, after she wakes up, she wants a divorce.

Click here to read more. Then, watch Elephant Palm Tree and other shorts, and catch the best of the 2005 Sundance Online Film Festival, now through June 20 at www.sundance.org.

Eight Projects Selected for the 2005 Sundance Summer Theatre Laboratory
Jessica Hagedorn and Mark Bennett's Most Wanted, a musical inspired by the life of Gianni Versace’s murderer Andrew Cunanan, David Grimm's Measure for Pleasure, a comedy of manners in which an 18th century male prostitute assumes any one of a range of guises, and Said Sayrafiezadeh's New York is Bleeding, a look at New York City during the height of the Civil War, are among the wide range of new theatre pieces selected for development at the 2005 Sundance Institute’s Theatre Lab. Running from July 11-31 at Sundance Village in Utah, theatre artists who participate in the intensive three-week workshop are given the time, space, and support to develop their new work or explore new approaches to existing scripts, without the pressures of production. Read more.

Emerging Indie Filmmakers Head to Sundance for Directors and Screenwriters Labs
Sundance Institute Feature Film Program has announced the selection of 13 projects for the annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, including Taika Waititi's Something Beginning with Love, Stew and Heidi Rodewald's We Can See Today, and Eva Husson's Tiny Dancer. The diverse range of projects join films supported by the Program in the past like Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, Joshua Marston’s Maria Full of Grace, Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, and David Jacobson’s Down in the Valley which premieres at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival – all of which were developed during the Institute’s Feature Film Program Labs.
Read More.

Documentary Series Presents DIG! on June 2 in Park City
On June 2 in Park City, the Institute's Documentary Film Series presents DIG!. Seven years in the making, and culled from fifteen hundred hours of footage, Ondi Timoner's DIG! tracks the tumultuous rise of two talented musicians, Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Courtney Taylor, leader of the Dandy Warhols, and dissects their star-crossed friendship and bitter rivalry. The free monthly screenings are followed by open forum discussions with filmmakers, critics, and subjects of the films. Screenings begin at 7 p.m. in the Jim Santy Auditorium at the Park City Library, 1255 Park Avenue. Tickets or reservations are not required. The series is part of the Institute's Arts & Audiences Utah Initiative and is generously supported by the Summit County Recreation, Arts, and Parks Program.

Deadline: Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Award
Application Deadline: June 30, 2005

Applications for the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Award are now being accepted through June 30, 2005. Applications are by professional recommendation only, and a written referral must accompany each application. If you are unsure if you qualify, please contact the program administrator at nhk_award@sundance.org.