The Latest

Here’s How to Follow the 2017 Festival From Home
We hope to see you in the flesh at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, but if it’s not in the cards, Sundance.org is presenting tons of live video and editorial coverage of film premieres, panels, and music, as well as around-the-clock updates on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media. If you can’t be in Park City for the festivities this year, we’ve got your back.

So You Want to Be a Producer? Catching Up with 5 Creative Producing Alumni
The role—or perhaps we should say the perception—of the creative film producer is one often muddled by notions of financial brokering and budget consciousness. It may be the film credit most often dislodged from its raison d’etre, which is inherently creative. There’s a reason that producing teams appear on-stage to accept Best Picture honors during award seasons, and it has everything to do with their intimacy with a project from conception to completion.

Keep It Legit: Support Our Supporters
Like us, we expect you’re excited to see the incredible new work that will premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Even a quick glance at our program reveals many standout, can’t-miss experiences. Whiplash, Reservoir Dogs, and Cartel Land are just a few of the gems launched at the Festival over the years, and as the days count down we’re buzzing with excitement for the discoveries yet to be made.

Announcing The Jury Members Of The 2017 Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY, UTAH — Sundance Institute will convene 24 experts in film, art, culture and science to award feature-length work shown at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival with 28 prizes, announced at a ceremony January 28 that will be livestreamed at sundance.org, and on YouTube and Facebook. Short Film Awards will be announced at a separate ceremony on January 24 and will also be live streamed.

Offscreen at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival: Panels and Events
Onstage: Ava DuVernay, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ira Glass, Joan Jett, Octavia Spencer and Taika Waititi, Among Many Others
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute will convene dozens of offscreen events, including diverse and intersectional conversations
on representation and bias in media, behind-the-scenes panels on the art of filmmaking and musical performances that range
from intimate to raucous at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival taking place in Park City, Utah, January 18 – 28, 2018.
The first 2018 installment of the longstanding Power of Story series, Power of Story: Culture Shift, will convene Ava DuVernay
(A Wrinkle in Time), Patrick Gaspard (president of the Open Society Foundations), Issa Rae (Insecure), Megan Smith (3rd
U.S.

9 Indigenous-Made Films to Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival
Want to see the list of films by Indigenous directors that premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival? Check this blog post.Rooted in the recognition of the rich storytelling cultures and inherent sovereignty of Native American nations, Sundance Institute has held a commitment to Native artists since its founding. Mandated by our Founder Robert Redford, the Institute has nurtured and supported Native filmmakers going back to a time when almost none existed.

2017 Sundance Film Festival Adds Two More Films
Newness
Credit: Courtesy of Production
TRUMPED: Inside The Greatest Political Upset of All Time
Credit: Laura Hudock/Courtesy of SHOWTIME
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute augments the 2017 Sundance Film Festival program with two new independent films, announced today: Newness, from director Drake Doremus, and TRUMPED: Inside The Greatest Political Upset of All Time, from directors Banks Tarver, Ted Bourne and Mary Robertson. The Festival takes place in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29. For more info and screening times for these films and all other program elements, visit sundance.

2016 Theatre Program Highlights
Dear Friends,When I arrived at Sundance Institute in 1996, I was surprised that many American artists seemed woefully disconnected from theatre-making outside our country’s borders. I set out to change that. After all, if we artists do not model a borderless life, who will? I knew I had to shift our lens, our perspective.

2017 Sundance Film Festival Celebrates Day One With An Artist At The Table Benefit For Sundance Institute
Park City, UT – Sundance Institute revealed the program elements for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival’s annual Day One celebration, An Artist at the Table, to be held on Thursday, January 19.The seated dinner will feature entertainment from Kenny Loggins, a multi-course gourmet meal from the James Beard Foundation’s Celebrity Chef Tour and a celebrated Sundance Institute artist at each table.
An Artist at the Table provides a unique opportunity for attendees to engage with Sundance Institute artists while contributing to the Institute’s mission of championing the bold vision of those creating independent film and theatre.

Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell on Imagining a Better World—and How to Build It
We take the color white for granted—the brilliant white of Styrofoam cups, sunscreen, skimmed milk, and the lines on tennis courts. To produce it, manufacturers use titanium dioxide as a pigment, found in its most common natural form in a mineral called rutile. Around a third of the world’s rutile is in Sierra Leone, which sits on 259 million metric tons of the stuff (currently valued at around $1000 per ton).

Sundance Institute 2017 Screenwriters Lab Nurtures Global Creativity
Los Angeles, CA — Fifteen emerging screenwriters will come together at Sundance Institute’s 2017 Screenwriters Lab, an immersive writers’ workshop announced today and taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah January 13-18, 2017.
Drawn from around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Chile, and Iran, selected screenwriters will have the opportunity to work intensively on their feature film scripts with the support of established writers in an environment that embraces creative risk-taking and the art and craft of cinematic storytelling. Under the leadership of Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Labs Director Ilyse McKimmie, the fellows will work with a distinguished group of Creative Advisors at the Lab.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! 2017 Sundance Film Festival Adds Four Films
Long Strange Trip
Credit: Andrew Kent
Reservoir Dogs
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Bending The Arc
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Desert Hearts
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Park City, UT — Rounding out an already robust slate of new independent work, Sundance Institute adds two Documentary Premieres and two archive From The Collection films to the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Screenings take place in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29.
Documentary Premieres Bending the Arc and Long Strange Trip join archive films Desert Hearts and Reservoir Dogs, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1986 and 1992, respectively.

An Inconvenient Sequel, Followup to An Inconvenient Truth to World Premiere at 2017 Sundance Film Festival as Day One Screening
Park City, UT — An Inconvenient Sequel, the followup to watershed environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth, will make its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival as a Day One screening, part of The New Climate, a program dedicated to conversations and films about environmental change and conservation.
A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes An Inconvenient Sequel, a riveting look at both the escalation of the crisis and how close we are to a real solution. Directed by Sundance Film Festival alumni Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk.

“Through You”: How a New VR Project Dances with Intimacy
I didn’t do film school. I was a dancer and started making raw stop-motion shorts when touring with David Byrne. After 150 shows, I came to realize that dance enabled people to understand the music.

Sundance Institute Announces Shorts For 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Come Swim
Credit: John Guleserian
Night Shift
Credit: Estee Ochoa
The Robbery
Credit: Lowell Meyer
Park City, UT — Sixty-eight short films, announced today, will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29.