The Latest
Aaron Brookner Celebrates A Beloved Family Member And A Bygone New York In ‘Uncle Howard’
Director Howard Brookner made his initial mark on the cinematic landscape in 1983 with Burroughs: The Movie, a widely praised look at legendary beat generation writer William S. Burroughs, which also served as a document of New York’s fabled downtown scene during what many consider its artistic heyday. Brookner’s follow-up was another acclaimed non-fiction film, 1986’s Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, about the famed theater director.
Daily Roundup: Anne Fontaine Builds a World of Secrets in Agnus Dei
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.
7 Films to Watch During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program is proud to highlight its support of seven projects that raise awareness of modern-day slavery and human trafficking at home and abroad. Human trafficking is the violation of human rights in which lives are traded, sold, exploited, abused and ruined. Here are some facts, courtesy of dosomething.
Daily Roundup: Spike Lee’s Tribute to Michael Jackson, Ira Sachs Returns for a Sixth Festival
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.
Thomas Middleditch Embarks on a Misguided Boys’ Weekend in ‘Joshy’
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.
Three Premieres Broach the Gun Violence Epidemic in America
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.
Nate Parker Looks to Provoke Change with ‘The Birth of a Nation’
With racial diversity in the entertainment industry such a passionately debated issue at the moment, the time couldn’t be more ideal for Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation. A powerfully-rendered epic that not only shares a title with D.W.
‘Kate Plays Christine’ Blurs Lines in Revisiting Anchor’s On-Air Suicide
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 Institute Announces New Merata Mita Fellowship For Indigenous Artists and 2016 Recipient
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.
Daily Roundup: Casey Affleck Brings Devastating Authenticity to ‘Manchester by the Sea’
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.
Interview: Richard Tanne Takes Viewers on a First Date with the Obamas in ‘Southside with You’
First dates can be awkward, but they often make for fascinating cinema. In the tradition of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, Southside With You follows two young people getting to know one another as audiences get a chance to learn about them.
What distinguishes writer-director Richard Tanne’s first feature from the pack is the protagonists here are 26-year-old attorney Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter), who is rather reluctantly squired around Chicago one summer afternoon with her firm’s new associate, 28-year-old Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers).
Visiting the Boundless Worlds of Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier on its 10th Anniversary
Yesterday morning between the hours of 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., I traveled to Cuba, visited the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, experienced a city under air attack, endured solitary confinement, walked a narrow path over a blazing, infinite abyss before cradling a mysterious orb in some futuristic, alien land, roved around Mars, and became an exotic, endangered creature floating above a rain forest—for starters.
‘Wiener-Dog,’ ‘The Bad Kids,’ and 2016’s First Young Breakout
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.
‘Belgica,’ ‘Sky Ladder,’ ‘Other People,’ and ‘Norman Lear’ Ring In 2016 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.
Robert Redford Kicks Off the 2016 Festival: “Diversity Comes Out of Independence”
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.