The Latest
Yoav Potash on Using Film to Create Justice for Victims of Domestic Abuse
Editor’s Note: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and as Yoav Potash’s work with Crime After Crime continues
to inspire elected officials to push new legislation and rectify
misguided American policies surrounding victims of domestic abuse,
another project that made waves at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 is
challenging the widespread public perception of these victims. Private Violence intimately
places viewers in the shoes of two domestic violence survivors and
explores why the option—and all too common refrain—to “just leave,” is
often not one. I am not sure which is harder: making a documentary feature film or passing new laws to improve our justice system.
Sundance Institute Announces Artists and Projects for Two Fall Theatre Labs
New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the projects and artists participating in its two Fall artist development programs: the Alumni Writers Studio at Flying Point in Water Mill, NY, which ran October 4-11, as well as the two-week Theatre Lab for musical theatre, ensemble-generated projects and solo work at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), taking place November 8-22. Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the initiatives are among the 24 residency Labs the Institute hosts each year for independent artists in theatre, film, new media and episodic content.
The Alumni Writers Studio at Flying Point offers four invited Theatre Program alumni and one Feature Film Program Alum an uninterrupted period of time and the space to work on their projects in a studio setting.
A Personal Note About Today’s Ticketing Issue
First and foremost, we’re sincerely sorry for the inconvenience you experienced with our ticketing system today. We’ve spent the last few weeks preparing for ticket sales to start today but experienced some very unfortunate (to put it mildly) technical issues beyond anything we could have anticipated. So we made the very difficult decision to stop the sale of passes and packages for the day so we can rectify the problems and restart the sale next week.
Cinematic Experiments: Michael Almereyda Is Back With Heady Psych Drama ‘Experimenter’
The main character in Michael Almereyda’s new film, Experimenter, is a social psychologist, moral thinker, innovator, and filmmaker. While it would be too convenient and reductive to draw too solid a line between Stanley Milgram, author of the still enlightening, still controversial “obedience experiments” and the director, it’s not hard to see why an artist of Almereyda’s intellect and formal dexterity would be attracted to his story. Among many other things, Milgram was interested in what people are capable of doing to one another and why, how they respond to authority, how they form communities, how they manage to morally justify their actions and their lives—matters of supreme interest to a dramatist and director of actors by trade.
Five Young Independent Film Directors Who Proved That Youth Is Not a Burden
Art is intended to vanquish walls, not construct them. As is well documented in cinema, that struggle is an ongoing one. Among the lesser-publicized barriers in the film world is the factor of age, and today’s Sundance Ignite program announcement makes a go of mitigating that qualification.
Sundance Institute Announces New Program to Support Next Generation of Independent Filmmakers and Audiences
Los Angeles, CA — Believing that 18-to-24-year-olds will lead us into our creative future with more than memes and Snapchats, Sundance Institute today announced a new project to inspire and connect young independent filmmakers and audiences. The Sundance Ignite program will offer 18-to-24-year-olds exclusive access to independent film and filmmaking experiences, including at the Sundance Film Festival, which over the course of its 30-year history has launched films such as Napoleon Dynamite, Jawbreaker, Tangerine, Heathers, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Dope, Bachelorette, Whiplash, The Spectacular Now, The Way, Way Back, The Blair Witch Project and SAW.
The Sundance Ignite program, with support from Adobe through its Project 1324 initiative, will host an online short film challenge for 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers, and five winners will attend the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
4 Reasons to See ‘(T)Error,’ the Counterterrorism Doc That Reconsiders the Threat
If fear is in fact the most powerful motivator, then (T)Error may have us all hand-wringing and galvanized come the credits. In their feature debut, co-directors Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe cleverly infiltrate a real life counterterrorism sting carried out by a veteran FBI informant known as Saeed Torres, or “Shariff.
Enter ‘The Forbidden Room,’ Guy Maddin’s Coiling and Hallucinatory Ode to Lost Cinema
It’s all but impossible to describe all that happens in The Forbidden Room, since it’s all but impossible to track all that’s happening in the moment.
So let’s just say it has something to do with a doomed submarine, a woodsman determined to save his beloved from humanoid wolves, a manacled gardener, a soused parachutist attorney, a poisonous skeleton unitard, posthumous drinking buddies, an inner child murderer, and baths, for starters. It’s a film in which digressions aren’t really digressions, but rather thresholds to new flights of fancy, to more and more fervent valentines to lost and imagined cinematic worlds, to beautiful imagery and bawdy jokes.
What to Watch in October: Sarah Silverman Leads a Double Life in ‘I Smile Back’
A pair of Sundance breakout films coming to theaters in October examine the disparate but mesmerizing charades carried out by their subjects. In the documentary (T)ERROR, cameras infiltrate a real life counterterrorism sting carried out by a veteran FBI informant, and in I Smile Back, Sarah Silverman secretly inhabits a world of compulsion and duplicity that belies her idyllic family life. Check out all that October has to offer below.
Please Take Your Seats: 9 Sundance Film Festival Ticketing Tips
Navigating the world of ticketing at the Sundance Film Festival can seem a daunting undertaking. Fortunately, Sundance’s own expert in the field, Linda Pfafflin, knows the ins and outs better than anyone, and for the last few years she’s made herself a resource for audiences looking for seats. Below, she shares some of the lesser-known avenues into both the films you’d never thought you had a chance at seeing—and those you’d never thought to try.
Vincent Cassel Is a Well-Intentioned Cult Leader in ‘Partisan’
Transitioning from short films to features is treading a familiar, tried and true path for filmmakers. But there’s a rare tribe of filmmakers who pass through the selection gauntlet to place a film in the Sundance Film Festival shorts program, and then prevail over another, equally daunting competition to do the same for a feature film. To achieve that, you must be doing something right.
‘Finders Keepers,’ Losers Weepers: The Battle Over a Human Limb
The story of Finders Keepers, a rollicking and sneakily emotional film that screened as part of U.S. Documentary Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is almost too good to be true.
Sundance Film Forward Travels to Miami October 20-23
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced today that Sundance Film Forward will host free screenings of acclaimed independent films and moderated discussions and workshops with talented filmmakers October 20-23. The events will take place in a range of venues from the program’s host, the Bill Cosford Cinema at University of Miami, to small community centers, including branches of the Miami-Dade Public Library System.
Sundance Film Forward is a touring program of film screenings and discussions to excite and cultivate new audiences for independent film, with a special focus on 18- to 24-year-olds.
7 Films to Add to Your Watchlist This Hispanic Heritage Month
Phrases like “language of cinema” tend to prompt exaggerated eye rolls, but even the most bromidic sayings sometimes bear repeating. Scorsese once dedicated an entire lecture to the topic, and the notion that cinema is in fact a universal dialect is verified every time we experience a foreign language film. What’s lost in translation is, invariably, found again in film.
Sundance Institute Continues Support for Creators of TV and Online Series; 10 Projects Selected for 2015 Episodic Story Lab
Los Angeles,CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 10 projects selected from more than 2,500 submissions for its second Episodic Story Lab, representing some of the most promising new writers creating TV and online series. The Lab supports first-time show creators and is one of 24 residency Labs the Institute hosts each year for independent artists in theatre, film, new media and episodic content.
Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, with Jennifer Goyne Blake, Senior Manager of the Episodic Story Lab, Fellows will work with an accomplished group of showrunners, television executives and producers on developing their spec pilot and series overview.