Sndance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups and insights into our experiences throughout the Festival.

The emotional vacancies apparently part and parcel to male companionship, whether a dated social construct or otherwise, are well documented in film and television (see another Sundance Competition film for just one portrayal). But Jeff Baena’s comfortable writing and direction in Joshy manage to fashion a smart and renewed comedic take on that age-old stereotype by subtly expounding the vagaries and variations that make it so.
Thomas Middleditch – well known for his vaunted role on HBO’s Silicon Valley – stars as the film’s titular lead, Josh, who is going forward with his bachelor party despite his fiancé’s suicide months earlier.

PARK CITY, Utah — The Merata Mita Fellowship, a new annual fellowship named in honor of the late Māori filmmaker Merata Mita (1942-2010), was announced today at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, which is taking place through January 31 in Utah. The first recipient is Ciara Leina’ala Lacy (Kanaka Maoli) from O’ahu, Hawai’i. In addition to networking opportunities at the Sundance Film Festival, Lacy will receive a monetary grant, yearlong continuum of support, access to strategic and creative services offered by Sundance Institute’s artists programs and mentorship opportunities.

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups and insights into our experiences throughout the Festival.

After watching a film in which the lines between documentary and fiction, behavior and performance, reportage and speculation, are deliberately blurred, it was fitting that the discussion after the world premiere of Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine at the Temple Theater last night felt like a spillover from, or even a fulfillment of, the movie. In all respects, it was questions begging other questions, with on and off-screen lives and motivations and methods remaining meaningfully elusive.

Kate Lyn Sheil and Robert Greene.

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups and insights into our experiences throughout the Festival.

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups and insights into our experiences throughout the Festival.

Sudance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups and insights into our experiences throughout the Festival.

If there was a prevailing motif to Thursday’s press conference kicking off the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, it may have come in the form of a corrective to commentary surrounding diversity in the film industry following last week’s disappointingly homogeneous Oscars news. Perhaps it’s the inevitable timing of the Festival, swelling conspicuously amidst awards season, but Redford once again found himself repeatedly foiling others’ efforts to detract from Sundance’s 10-day celebration of independent film. Just as he pointedly remarked several years ago to not “let that get in the way of why we’re here,” the longtime actor and filmmaker once again opined on the importance of remaining present, while also reframing the conversation around diversity in cinema.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute, one of the world’s largest grantmakers to documentary film, today announced the ‘Art of Nonfiction’ initiative, which will expand the Institute’s existing support for documentaries exploring contemporary social issues to include targeted creative and financial support for documentary filmmakers exploring inventive artistic practice in story, craft and form. As part of the initiative, the Institute has selected Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine), Margaret Brown (The Order of Myths), and Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq (These Birds Walk) as the first Art of Nonfiction fellows. The initiative launches with editorial and financial support from Cinereach.

The Sundance Film Festival’s newest venue won’t be missing a beat when the curtains are raised on the 2016 edition of the Festival. Festival Base Camp presented by Canada Goose is a dynamic cross-programmatic harbor for music performances, panels, art, and film, and today we’re unveiling the lineup of musicians taking the stage throughout the Festival. A Celebration of Film in Music and BMI Snowball are open to credential holders as space permits; all other events at Festival Base Camp presented by Canada Goose are open to the public.

A couple weeks ago, I returned to Havana with Sundance Institute – 16 years after I went to Havana with the Institute back in 1999. As part of this year’s program, I led a master class on creative producing during the Havana Film Festival and hosted a salon for emerging Cuban producers.
Today, Havana seems overwhelmingly different and overwhelmingly the same.