The Latest
Vision & Voice: Sky Hopinka on Sky Hopinka on Recentering Cinema and Experimental Practice
November is Native American Heritage Month, and to celebrate, the Sundance Institute is running a weekly series, Vision & Voice: Indigenous Cinema Now, profiling artists who have been supported by the Institute’s Indigenous Program throughout its history. Over the course of the month, Indigenous Program associate director Adam Piron has talked to Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe, Native Hawaiian writer/director Ciara Lacy, and Seneca-Cayuga filmmaker Erica Tremblay.
Today, to close out the month, Piron is talking to Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga), whose feature maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore premiered at the 2020 Festival.
Sundance Institute and Starlight Partner to Launch Grant Program Supporting Diverse Filmmakers
LOS ANGELES — The Sundance Institute and Peter Luo’s Starlight Media (Crazy Rich Asians, Midway, Marshall, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) have partnered to launch a new grant program, the Sundance Institute | Stars Collective Granting Fund, to support diverse filmmakers.Both Starlight and Sundance Institute share a deep commitment to supporting artists from historically marginalized communities. Tapping into an initial fund of $200,000 provided by Starlight, this new program will provide unrestricted grants, ranging from $1,500 to $10,000, to diverse filmmakers working in nonfiction and fiction.
Sundance Institute Names 2021 Momentum Fellows
New Collaboration with NBCUniversal to Support Underrepresented Filmmakers in Building Sustainable Careers
Los Angeles – Sundance Institute announced today the third class of the Momentum Fellowship, a full-year program of deep, customized creative and professional support for mid-career writers and directors from underrepresented communities who are poised to take the next step in their careers in fiction and documentary filmmaking.
The fellowship includes an unrestricted grant funding, industry mentorship, professional coaching offered by Renee Freedman & Company supported by The Harnisch Foundation, writing workshops and industry meetings in Spring 2021, and bespoke year-round support from Sundance Institute staff. Additionally, the FilmTwo Fellowship has merged into the Momentum Fellowship, and NBCUniversal will provide an opportunity for select Momentum fellows working on fiction projects to participate in the Universal Directors Initiative.
The Future Is Ours: Filmmakers Sam Feder and Yance Ford on Bringing Visibility to the Multitude of Trans Experiences
At the Sundance Institute, we have stood with independent storytellers for nearly four decades, amplifying the voices of artists from a wide range of experiences and backgrounds. As leaders in the industry, we have a responsibility to amplify and support transgender voices and stories, to follow the lead of transgender advocates, and to create opportunities for transgender people.
Today, as we observe the 21st annual Transgender Day of Remembrance—and celebrate the resilience and importance of trans people in our communities every day—we want to underline that trans artists and trans stories will always have a place in the Sundance community: a place to cultivate their artistic craft, community, and most importantly, their joy.
Vision & Voice: Seneca-Cayuga Filmmaker Erica Tremblay on Challenging Western Notions of Indigenous Narratives
November is Native American Heritage Month, and to celebrate, the Sundance Institute is running a weekly series, Vision & Voice: Indigenous Cinema Now, profiling artists who have been supported by the Institute’s Indigenous Program throughout its history. So far, we’ve talked to Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe and Native Hawaiian writer/director Ciara Lacy, and this week, we’re chatting with Seneca-Cayuga filmmaker Erica Tremblay, whose film Little Chief played at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Tremblay brought Little Chief—a short about a Native woman and a troubled young boy whose lives intersect over the course of a school day on a reservation in Oklahoma—through the Native Filmmakers Lab in 2018, and she’s currently working on a script for her first feature.
Festival Rewind: Revisiting Sundance ’91, the Year of ‘Slacker,’ ‘Trust,’ and ‘Daughters of the Dust’
As we begin our countdown to the Sundance Film Festival—stay tuned for 2021 lineup details, and sign up for a Festival account here—we’re launching a new series, Festival Rewind. This week, we’re time-traveling back to 1991, the year of landmark independent films like Slacker, Trust, and Daughters of the Dust. Join us as we remember the award winners, the big moments, and the Festival firsts.
Vision & Voice: Native Hawaiian Filmmaker Ciara Lacy on the Artistic Process as a Form of Catharsis
Ciara Lacy’s new project ‘This Is the Way We Rise.’
November is Native American Heritage Month, and to celebrate, the Sundance Institute is running a weekly series, Vision & Voice: Indigenous Cinema Now, profiling artists who have been supported by the Institute’s Indigenous Program throughout its history. We kicked off the series last week talking to Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe; this week, we’re back speaking with Native Hawaiian writer/director Ciara Lacy, the first-ever recipient of the Institute’s Merata Mita Fellowship.
Off the Mountain: 2020 NativeLab Fellows on Decolonizing the Filmmaking Process
We recently introduced you to Off the Mountain, our new series offering a look inside the Sundance Institute’s summer labs. This year, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we brought our labs online for the first time ever, hosting our fellows and creative advisors on Sundance Co//ab rather than in person in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or at the Sundance Mountain Resort. Each week, we’ll be bringing you a roundtable-style discussion between a few fellows and staff members from each lab.
Vision & Voice: Navajo Filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe on Making His ‘Own Weird Kind of Cinematic Mutant’
November is Native American Heritage Month, and to celebrate, the Sundance Institute is running a weekly series, Vision & Voice: Indigenous Cinema Now, profiling artists who have been supported by the Indigenous Program throughout its history. To begin the series, the Indigenous Program’s associate director, Adam Piron, spoke with Blackhorse Lowe, a filmmaker from the Navajo Nation, whose debut feature, 5th World, premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at festivals around the globe.
“I want to show people something they haven’t seen before and give them an experience of something they haven’t tried—it’s like a trip or like going to a ceremony or hanging out with some weirdos,” he says of his filmography, which has grown to include award-winning projects like Shimásáni (2009), Chasing the Light (2016), and Fukry (2019).
Sundance Institute Selects Latest Slate of Documentary Fund Grantees
Los Angeles — The latest cohort of Sundance Institute Documentary Fund Grantees, announced today, comprise 23 nonfiction film projects from 21 countries of production. Unrestricted grant support, totaling $540,000, will benefit the projects across various production stages from development to post-production. Grants are made possible by The Open Society Foundations and the John D.
30 Years of Chills and Thrills: Your Sundance Midnight Horror Watch List
The Sundance Film Festival has the horror genre built into its DNA. From the very beginning—in fact, looking all the way back to the modern-day Festival’s late-’70s origins as the Utah/U.S.
The Sundance Institute’s Safety and Belonging Survey
In June, the Sundance Institute publicly acknowledged that our Festival and Labs have not always been safe spaces for our BIPOC community members. We reaffirmed our commitment to the principles central to our mission: equity, inclusivity, and accessibility, and our commitment to reimagine the Sundance experience at our Festival and beyond. A critical part of this process is to engage more deeply with our community of artists, audiences, and staff to identify and understand past experiences so that we can use the information to shape safer and more inclusive spaces, especially in time for the 2021 Festival.
6 Compelling Documentaries That Shed Light on Our Election Process
For most of us, 2020 has been a difficult year—one that has reminded us over and over again just how important it is that we stay actively engaged in our communities and in our political system at large. And, of course, while there’s more than one way to do your civic duty wherever you live, with Election Day less than a week away here in the United States, we hope voting is top of mind for you right now. It’s time to let your voice be heard.
Please Vote: A Letter from Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam
Last January, many of us were together in Park City, preparing ourselves for what we thought was already shaping up to be a tumultuous year. (Little did we know!)
As we kicked off the Festival, we reflected on the fact that, especially in volatile times, democracy and storytelling aren’t separate — they’re inextricably linked. And having a multiplicity of diverse voices telling independent, authentic stories is as critical to art and media as it is to politics and government.
Sundance Institute Announces Seven New Members of Board of Trustees
The Institute Continues to Shape Board Leadership for Future
Los Angeles — The nonprofit Sundance Institute today announced the newly appointed and recent additions to the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Ann Lewnes, Wonya Lucas join the board alongside Uzodinma Iweala, Amanda Kelso, William Plapinger, and Junaid Sarieddeen who joined over the last year. Together they add to the business, cultural, and philanthropic leaders who guide and steer the entire organization and also act in an advisory capacity.