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2018 Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier: Crossroads of Film, Art and Technology
Innovative Independent and Experimental Work to Premiere, Including Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality
Storytelling, Site-Specific Installations, Films and Live Performances
Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Tashka Yawawnawa/Lance Troxel.
Park City, UT — As the intersection of art and technology grows more crowded, Sundance Institute showcases a curated
collection of cutting-edge independent experimental media works by creators who are pushing the artistic development of
the new mediums of VR, AR, mixed reality (MR) and AI. The 2018 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival offers
some of the most innovative independent production and experimentation at the crossroads of film, art and technology that
is being created today.
What to Watch this Holiday Season
During a month when new film releases prove unusually elusive (rest easy, we’ve got 110 new ones coming your way in January), we’re setting the stage for the winter season with some of our favorite holiday-themed Sundance films. This is where the debate concerning Die Hard’s standing as a “Christmas movie” promptly ends, and reignites with a push for a streetwise tale of pimps and prostitutes (that’d be Tangerine) as the new December classic.
Happy ChristmasWatch it now.
SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES INDIE EPISODIC, SHORTS & SPECIAL EVENT SELECTIONS FOR 2018 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
War Paint, Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Park City, UT — Works selected across the new Indie Episodic, Shorts and Special Events sections of the 2018 Sundance
Film Festival were announced today, underlining Sundance Institute’s commitment to showcasing bold independent storytelling,
regardless of form, format or length.
New this year is the Indie Episodic section, designed as a dedicated showcase for emerging independent voices and their work. In recent
years, the Festival has screened episodic content in the
Special Events section, which includes new independent works that add to the unique Festival experience.
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.