Film Forward

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Film Forward travels to fourteen locations around the world screening a collection of ten independent U.S. and international films. Filmmakers connect with audiences and open doors to new ideas, stories, and perspectives. Film Forward is an initiative of Sundance Institute and The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“Cinema, both fiction and non-fiction, has shown over and over that as human beings, we share values beyond any border, real or imagined.” -Robert Redford

Film Forward selects five U.S and five international films to participate each year. Films are selected on the basis of artistic excellence, diversity of story, and the potential to ignite curiosity and promote mutual understanding. Filmmakers travel with their films to present their work, engage in question and answer sessions, meaningful one-on-one discussions, panels, master classes, and workshops. Films are showcased through Embassies, museums, and cultural and educational centers reaching a wide demographic of rural and urban communities. In 2010/11 ten filmmakers from seven countries will visit China, France, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Uganda, as well as Arizona, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. Film Forward is a continuation of its federal partners’ commitment to film presentation as a way to examine, reflect, and celebrate diversity, while challenging existing stereotypes, and facilitating cultural dialogue.