The Latest

Shorts Awards Announced at 2018 Sundance Film Festival

Matria Wins Grand Jury Prize

Park City, Utah — Winners of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival jury prizes in short filmmaking were announced today
by Sundance Institute at a ceremony in Park City, Utah. The
Short Film Grand Jury Prize, awarded to one film in the program of 69 shorts selected from 8,740 submissions, went
to
Matria, written and directed by
Álvaro Gago. Full video of the ceremony is at
youtube.

​Director Tim Wardle on ‘Three Identical Strangers’: “The Single Best Documentary Story I Had Ever Come Across”

In 1980, a 19-year-old moves away from home to a small college in upstate New York. Upon arriving, strangers wave hello, approach him to chat, and treat him as if they already know him. The teenager soon realizes that someone who looks exactly like him attended that school the year before, and he discovers his identical brother, whom he was separated from at birth.

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Presents Feature Film Prize to Search and Announces New Grants to Artists at 2018 Sundance Film Festival

Winners of Commissioning Grant, Episodic Storytelling Grant and Lab Fellowship Revealed

Search

Director-Screenwriter Aneesh Chaganty Honored

Park City, Utah — At a reception at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival today, the beneficiaries of $71,000 in grants
from Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation were revealed.
Doron Weber, Sloan Vice President of Programs and Director of the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program, presented the Feature
Film Prize to
Search and announced the new winners:
Cherien Dabis’s
What The Eyes Don’t See (Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant), produced by Rosalie Swedlin for Anonymous Content and executive produced by Michael Sugar;
C.

Sundance Institute Announces 2018 Recipient of Merata Mita Fellowship for Indigenous Artists

Fellowship Honors Artistic Contributions of Late Māori Filmmaker

PARK CITY, Utah — Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Blackfoot/Sámi) from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada is the 2018
recipient of the Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship—an annual fellowship named in honor of the late Māori filmmaker
Merata Mita (1942-2010). The announcement was delivered today at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
For the third consecutive year, Sundance Institute has identified an Indigenous filmmaker from a global pool of nominees
to award a cash grant and provide a year-long continuum of support with activities including a trip to the Sundance Film
Festival, access to strategic and creative services offered by Sundance Institute artist programs, and mentorship opportunities.

An Interview with Stephen Maing, Director of ‘Crime + Punishment’

It’s not often that a documentary film achieves both newsworthy timeliness and long-term, long-form, longitudinal depth. But that’s exactly what Stephen Maing pulls off with Crime + Punishment, a project that’s been years in the making, following more than a dozen characters, comprising over a thousand hours of footage, and yet the issues at hand and its attendant legal proceedings, couldn’t be more active or immediate. Building off of several shorter films made earlier in the decade, Maing (whose previous feature, High Tech, Low Life premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival) spent time with New York City police officers who had decided to go public with their frustrations over what they were being asked to do—effectively meet arrest quotas that target citizens of minority communities, even though such quotas have been deemed illegal.

Offscreen Tips and Picks: Darren Aronofsky, Steve James, and more

What’s the purpose of a film festival if the narrative ends when the reel runs out? Offscreen at the Sundance Film Festival was created to extend the life of the stories on screen, to ignite conversation, and to encourage debate. This year, with an Offscreen program as robust as ever, we’re highlighting the panels and presentations that will be keeping the pilot flame lit on conversations throughout the Festival.Ways of SeeingTuesday, January 23, 2:00–3:30 p.

Chloe Sevigny Delivers a Smack in the Face to Patriarchy with ‘Lizzie’

Since her debut as an HIV-infected teen in Larry Clark’s button-pushing drama Kids in 1995, Chloe Sevigny has portrayed nearly every type of character imaginable. The versatile actress/fashion icon has depicted the Midwestern girlfriend of a trans man in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, the dowdiest sister-wife of a polygamist on HBO’s series Big Love, a scheming Jane Austen social climber in 2016’s Love & Friendship, and even a legless nymphomaniac in FX’s American Horror Story.
Now she’s found a starring role to really sink her teeth into.