The Latest
New Work for the Stage: Sundance Institute and MASS MoCA Announce Theatre Lab Projects
Plays by David Adjmi, Youness Atbane, David Cale and Kamilah Forbes Reflect the Impact of Art and Its Possibilities
Los Angeles, CA — Four projects representing diverse world voices, each with bold and independent visions of how
art can elevate the human experience, comprise this year’s selected projects for the two-week Sundance Institute Theatre
Lab at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), convening December 3-17, 2017, with a public performance
of another project slated for December 9. The Theatre Labs process is rigorous and generative. Dedicated to the creation
and development of forward-thinking theater; projects are cast individually, rehearsed daily and benefit from concentrated,
uninterrupted time and resources.
Inside the Mind of a Programmer: Breaking Down the 2018 Festival Lineup
Following what’s felt like an unusually protracted Sundance Film Festival offseason, and one marked by what Festival Director John Cooper calls a “rejuvenated idea” of the 24-hour news cycle, the 2018 program announcement arrives at a pivotal time for audiences and artists. If we approach 2018 still processing the tumult and instability of the past year, this year’s program of films are primed to serve as a careful distillation of the times – and a representation of what that looks like across a broad spectrum of voices.
Below, John Cooper and Director of Programming Trevor Groth walk us through another year of intense decision-making and shed light on the tapestry of voices that will come to define the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
2018 Sundance Film Festival: Feature Films Announced
110 Independent Films From 29 Countries
(Top, L-R) The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Credit: Jeong Park, Anote’s Ark, Credit: Matthieu Rytz; Search, Credit: Juan Sebastian Baron.
(Bottom, L-R) King In the Wilderness, Credit: Flip Schulke Archives/Getty Images, The Kindergarten Teacher, Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute, Half the Picture, Credit: Ashly Covington.
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute showcases bold, independent storytelling at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, beginning with today’s announcement of feature films selected across all categories.
Sundance Institute Announces 2018 Sundance Ignite Fellows
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute and Adobe Project 1324 announced the newest round of 2018 Sundance Ignite
Fellows today, chosen from a global crop of more than 800 applicants. The fifteen 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers selected
to participate in this one-year fellowship hail from five continents, with creative groundings spanning from television
writing to documentary photography to narrative short films.
“These fifteen remarkable emerging artists are truly on the forefront of what’s next in our culture, and
we are thrilled to help them reach the next level with their fresh voices and unique perspectives,” said
Meredith Lavitt, Director of Sundance Ignite.
Stories of Change Lab: Using Film to Create Hope Out of Darkness
I’ve always loved cat’s claw flowers.
They’re invasive and unruly and often found growing on the most blighted, run-down houses in the city of New Orleans. They’re a little bit like hope in that way.
Three Native Program Alumni Invited to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
National Native American and Alaska Native Heritage Month has been observed every November since 1990. During this month and throughout the year, Sundance Institute through its Native American and Indigenous Program recognizes and supports the immense talent and ongoing accomplishments of Indigenous storytellers in the Americas and globally.
Sundance Institute has been committed to the Native and Indigenous presence in film since the Institute’s founding in 1981.
Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellowship Year Two: An Oral History
A lot can happen in a year. For the filmmakers chosen as the second-ever cohort of the Art of Nonfiction Fellowship—the founding pillar of the Sundance Documentary Film Program’s Art of Nonfiction Initiative—it was a year that started with being admitted to the fellowship; continued with retreats in Marfa, Texas, and Sundance Resort; saw various films reach completion, stir to life, and steadily develop; and ended with the five of them sitting around a table on a late summer day in New York.
The Art of Nonfiction Fellowship is a pointedly atypical initiative in that it isn’t project-based—there’s no demand or expectation in terms of a particular project.
‘Cameraperson’ Producer Danielle Varga: “We Must Put Our Faith in What Others Might Deem Unsafe”
Danielle Varga is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She most recently co-produced Kirsten Johnson’s feature “Cameraperson” and was a 2016 Documentary Film Creative Producing Lab Fellow.
I remember quite clearly, a little over a year-and-a-half ago, being seated at the Yarrow Theater in Park City, Utah, minutes before Cameraperson’s world premiere.
Artists, Writers, Filmmakers Among Sundance Institute’s 2017 Art of Nonfiction Fellows and Grantees
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction Initiative welcomes four Fellows and five Grantees, as well as three Nonfiction Critics Fellows, in its third year of granting key creative and financial support to inventive nonfiction storytellers working in the field today.
“This year’s Art of Nonfiction cohort, expanded to include writing fellows, signals our commitment to supporting artists in getting inventive nonfiction work made, seen and situated within the culture.” said Tabitha Jackson, Director of Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.
Use These Data Transparent Companies to Amplify Your Film Distribution Strategy
Throughout the process of making a film it’s nearly impossible to do everything yourself. No matter how big or small, you assemble a team for every phase of production. The ability to assemble a hardworking, supportive team is crucial to the efficiency of making your art.
Lauren McBride: 5 Ways the Creative Producing Lab Will Change Your Career (and Your Life)
Lauren McBride is an independent film producer based in New York City and a 2017 producing fellow with her project “Selah and the Spades.” Learn more and apply for the Creative Producing Lab & Fellowship or the Documentary Creative Producing Lab & Fellowship. I nearly didn’t apply to the lab.
How Native and Indigenous Film Producers Can Help Hollywood Get it Right
Growing up in rural Oklahoma and raised as an elders’ child by my grandparents, I always went eagerly to see any movie that seemed to have something to do with Native people. And as I left the theater, my Comanche grandfather always said, disappointedly, the same remark: “Maybe someday they will get it right.” As a little Indian girl, I wondered if and how Hollywood would ever get the message.
Meet the 2017-2018 Women at Sundance Fellows
We are thrilled to announce our sixth annual class of Women at Sundance Fellows, a diverse group of women poised to take big leaps in their burgeoning careers during the coming fellowship year.
Women at Sundance offers a robust year-long fellowship that includes mentorship; professional coaching made possible by The Harnisch Foundation in partnership with Renee Freedman & Co; travel grants to the Sundance Film Festival to participate in curated activities; entree into branded and episodic content; and bespoke year-round support. Women at Sundance Fellows are a cohort of six emerging and mid-career narrative and documentary directors and producers, selected from a pool of recent Sundance Institute alumnae.
Sundance Institute Adds Charles D. King and Donna Gruneich to Board of Trustees
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today that Charles D. King and Donna Gruneich will join the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Under the guidance of President & Founder Robert Redford and in close collaboration with Board Chair Pat Mitchell and Executive Director Keri Putnam, the new Trustees will bring deep experience in philanthropy, media strategy, finance and film production to the Institute’s governance.
Kawita Vatanayjankur Becomes the Machines Meant to Replace Us
Hussain Currimbhoy joined Sundance Institute in 2014 as a Festival programmer specializing in documentary feature films and New Frontier. He was previously the Director of Programming for the Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK.
I always had a crush on the art, artists, and stories I encountered from South East Asia — especially during my years in Perth, Australia, where news about films and filmmakers from the region often entered my world.