The Latest
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.
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.
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.
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.
Meet the 2017-2018 Women at Sundance Fellows
We are thrilled to announce our sixth annual class of Women at Sundance Fellows, a diverse group of women poised to take big leaps in their burgeoning careers during the coming fellowship year.
Women at Sundance offers a robust year-long fellowship that includes mentorship; professional coaching made possible by The Harnisch Foundation in partnership with Renee Freedman & Co; travel grants to the Sundance Film Festival to participate in curated activities; entree into branded and episodic content; and bespoke year-round support. Women at Sundance Fellows are a cohort of six emerging and mid-career narrative and documentary directors and producers, selected from a pool of recent Sundance Institute alumnae.
Sundance Institute Adds Charles D. King and Donna Gruneich to Board of Trustees
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today that Charles D. King and Donna Gruneich will join the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Under the guidance of President & Founder Robert Redford and in close collaboration with Board Chair Pat Mitchell and Executive Director Keri Putnam, the new Trustees will bring deep experience in philanthropy, media strategy, finance and film production to the Institute’s governance.
Kawita Vatanayjankur Becomes the Machines Meant to Replace Us
Hussain Currimbhoy joined Sundance Institute in 2014 as a Festival programmer specializing in documentary feature films and New Frontier. He was previously the Director of Programming for the Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK.
I always had a crush on the art, artists, and stories I encountered from South East Asia — especially during my years in Perth, Australia, where news about films and filmmakers from the region often entered my world.
Sundance Institute Deepens Artist Development Programs in Eight U.S. Cities With Renewed Knight Foundation Support
Los Angeles — Sundance Institute will continue producing artist development programs in eight U.S. cities, with funding from the John S.
Sundance Institute Preserves Early Independent Film Music History with GRAMMY Grant
With support from the GRAMMY Museum, Sundance Institute has digitized more than 700 audio and video recordings, pages of sheet music, photographs, and other documents from the early days of its Film Music Program—including seminal work in independent film composition from as early as the 1980s.
A few highlights of the catalogued items include a 1987 recording of a conversation with Brave Little Toaster composer David Newman and director Jerry Rees, and 1988 video of a panel on the philosophy and methods of composing for low-budget films, among many other gems. The project also uncovered correspondence with Robert Redford regarding the founding of the Film Music Program, as well as early newsletters and reports that give insight into the successes and challenges of the program’s beginnings.
Are You a Native Filmmaker in New Mexico or Michigan? Apply to the Full Circle Fellowship
Each year, Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program aims to support the next generation of Native American storytellers through the Full Circle Fellowship. The fellowship provides opportunities to explore a career as a filmmaker, attendance at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, a set internship at the Native Filmmakers Lab to gain hands-on film production experience, and a trip to Los Angeles with a schedule of production facilities tours, meetings with industry mentors, and film screenings.
This fellowship selects four New Mexico- and Michigan-based applicants, ages 18 to 24.