The Latest
Latest Additions to Sundance Film Festival Talks & Events
Park City, UT — The Sundance Institute today announced the latest additions to the programming slate of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday, January 28, at festival.sundance.org and via a network of Satellite Screens across the U.
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” Leads Sundance-Supported Independent Spirit Award Nominees
Earlier today, nominees for the 2021 Independent Spirit Awards were unveiled, and we want to congratulate all of the projects with ties to the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival for being recognized.
Eliza Hittman’s masterful drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always led the pack, notching seven nominations, including Best Feature and Best Director, while Lee Isaac Chung’s gorgeous, delicate family tale Minari (soon to enter wide release!) racked up six, including Best Male Lead and Best Screenplay.
Channing Godfrey Peoples’s Miss Juneteenth, Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, and Kitty Green’s The Assistant also received multiple nods, and in the Best Documentary category, all of the nominated films premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival.
In Memoriam: Walter Bernstein (1919–2021)
Walter Bernstein, the brilliant dramatist and one of our founding creative advisors, passed away on January 22, 2021, at the age of 101. Erudite, political, and fearless, Walter’s words always mattered; his stories mattered and his truth mattered. Walter was a powerful presence at the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab for over 25 years, and he made an extraordinary impact on the work of independent filmmakers and the stories they told, bearing witness and challenging the world we live in.
2021 Sundance Film Festival: Juries Announced
Park City, UT — 22 celebrated voices across film, art and culture will bestow this year’s awards to feature-length and short film at the Sundance Film Festival, at a digital ceremony taking place February 2nd. This year’s Festival is fully available online at Festival.Sundance.
A Note from Our Indigenous Program on the National Day of Racial Healing
Today is the fifth annual National Day of Racial Healing. Launched in 2017 by the W.K.
Your Guide to All the Projects Directed by Black Filmmakers at the 2021 Festival
Jamila Wignot’s portrait of a modern dance visionary who carved out space for Black performers and Black stories in 1950s New York City. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s look back at the legendary 1969 concert events in Harlem that came to be known as Black Woodstock. Jazz musician–turned-filmmaker Chris Bowers’ efforts to track his family’s lineage from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Sundance ’21 Goes Beyond Film
PARK CITY, UTAH — The lineup for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, taking place on a Sundance-built and feature-rich online platform, goes well beyond feature and short films, episodic work and the VR/XR of New Frontier — it also encompasses a curated program of free special events, conversations and activations available to the global public. These Talks & Events, presented on the Sundance platform, include our new Opening Ceremony, Sundance Dailies, and The Big Conversation series, trademark gatherings at Cinema Café and the Power of Story, Awards Night and the concluding It’s a Wrap session. Additional partner programming will take place in a bustling digital Festival Village, which includes Main Street, Satellite Screens, and the Artist Lounge.
4 Indigenous-Made Films Premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival
Following Founder and President Robert Redford’s original vision, the Sundance Institute has remained committed to supporting Indigenous artists throughout the Institute’s history. This has established a rich legacy of work and has supported more than 350 filmmakers through labs, grants, mentorships, public programs, and the platform of the Sundance Film Festival. The Institute’s Indigenous Program has a global focus and through its work strengthens Indigenous Cinema.
2021 Sundance Film Festival Announces Additional Films
Park City, UT — The nonprofit Sundance Institute today adds two more world premiere feature films to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival lineup. The 2021 Festival will take place digitally via a feature-rich, Sundance-built online platform and in person on Satellite Screens across the country (public health permitting) from January 28-February 3, 2021. Tickets for these additions are now on sale at festival.
2021 screenwriters lab fellows
PARK CITY, UTAH — Fifteen emerging storytellers from Chile, India, Kenya, Tunisia and the U.S. will convene digitally for Sundance Institute’s January Screenwriters Lab, taking place online via Sundance Co//ab from January 11–15, 2021.
Your Guide to All the Women-Helmed Projects at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival
An inventive horror film about a Scottish film censor who begins to unravel when she’s assigned to review a rather disturbing film; a whimsical coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old who is struggling to cope with the death of her mother; a moody tale set in the countryside of France that delves into the complexity of polyamory… These are just a few of the geographically diverse, genre-spanning stories being told at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival by women filmmakers in their first features. If you’re looking for some documentary fare, you can experience the transformative dance of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in Ailey, or follow chief reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions and emerge as India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women in Writing with Fire, or watch as students at Horizon High School in El Paso train to become police officers and Border Patrol agents in At the Ready.In the Festival’s New Frontier section—which highlights work by independent artists and creative technologists innovating the art and form of story at the convergence of diverse forms of creative expression—you won’t want to miss women-led projects like Beyond the Breakdown, a world-building browser performance where Festivalgoers engage with an AI + human collaborative team, created by a trio of artists including Women at Sundance Fellows Lauren Lee McCarthy and Grace Lee, Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler, inspired by the ideas of the late great science-fiction writer; 4 Feet High VR, an immersive work that centers around the perspective of a 17-year-old wheelchair user as she navigates her new high school; and Prison X – Chapter 1: The Devil and the Sun, which takes the audience into the dreams and nightmares that inhabit an infamous Bolivian jail.
2021 Sundance Film Festival Utah Media Update
Gathering together at the start of each year in Utah is part of the fiber of the Sundance Film Festival. Because of the pandemic, we formed a new plan this year: an adaptation of the Festival to an online platform where our local Utah audiences, as well as those who would have traveled to Utah, can gather safely in their respective homes to participate in the Festival. The safety and well-being of our audiences, community and staff is the most important thing to us.
2021 Sundance Film Festival: Full Program Announced
PARK CITY, UTAH — The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the showcase of new independent work selected across the Feature Film, Short Film, Indie Series and New Frontier categories for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival will take place digitally via a feature-rich, Sundance-built online platform and in person on Satellite Screens across the country (public health permitting) from January 28-February 3, 2021. Additionally, Festival attendees can gather in virtual waiting rooms, participate in live Q&As, and congregate in new, inspired online environments to interact in a range of ways both new and familiar.
The Sundance Institute, The Kendeda Fund, and TIME Studios Launch $250k Short Film Fund Addressing Gun Violence in America
Paola Mottura is the Sundance Institute’s Film Fund manager. Today she’s sharing details on a new partnership between the Institute, The Kendeda Fund, and TIME Studios.The past year has been a difficult one for most of us, between the sickness, isolation, anxiety, and crushing financial realities brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected BIPOC communities across the country.
4 Incredibly True Film Preservation Adventures from the Sundance Archives
Ever wonder why certain older independent films are only available on blurry VHS, scratchy bootleg, or out-of-print (aka $$$) DVDs, if they’re available at all?