The Latest
Storybook Meets Six Shooters: John Maclean on His Sundance Hit ‘Slow West’
The Western may be among the most American of genres—if not the most American of genres—but that has never stopped filmmakers from around the world, from Italy to Japan and beyond, from trying it on for size. In Slow West, winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2015 Festival, English writer-director John Maclean doesn’t transpose the genre to Europe—he brings a European sensibility to the American West. Considering the preponderance of immigrants who migrated to and settled in America, it wasn’t exactly a crazy notion.
5 Resolute Movie Moms For Mother’s Day
There is a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that avows, “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” One can doubt the veracity of the citation (it wasn’t found on Instagram, so that’s a start), but the notion itself is hardly disputable. As with all relationships, great cinema has a way of capturing the nuances that define a mother-child connection–from the joys of infancy to the precarious years of adolescence (during which I, for one, was goodness incarnate).
Sundance Institute Announces 14 Projects Selected for 2015 June Directors and Screenwriters Labs at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, May 25-June 25
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 14 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah from May 25 through June 25. The Labs are the centerpiece of the Institute’s year-round work with narrative feature filmmakers and are part of 24 residential labs the Institute hosts each year to discover and foster the talent of emerging independent artists in film, theatre, new media and episodic content.
Projects and participants selected for the 2015 June Directors and Screenwriters Labs are from the United States, Brazil, China, France, Georgia and the United Kingdom, and the Fellows bring experience from an unprecedented diversity of creative backgrounds, including documentary, theatre, music, new media, visual art and animation.
Blake Neely on ‘Star Wars’ and the Moment He Knew He Wanted to Compose
It’s easy to dismiss musical composition as an abstruse kind of necessity in film and television.
It’s an element of the artistic equation that the average viewer knows little about despite its universal resonance. We’re acutely aware that Jaws’s most menacing moments would be toothless without its iconic John Williams score, or that The Social Network’s nefarious ambiance is owed to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s calculated score, but that tends to be the depth of our wisdom.
Playwright Ellen McLaughlin on Creating a “Brand-New Something” at Flying Point
When we five playwrights came to Joan and George Hornig’s astonishing house on Flying Point Road in Long Island for the alumni writing studio, the spring was still groping around without much conviction. After our brutal New York winter, it was hard to believe that such a promised warmth and regeneration was even possible. But then it seemed just as unlikely that the five of us would be put up in such luxury and fed for a full week by our own private chef (oh, the food!) on grounds just a few minutes’ walk from a glistening beach.
7 Groundbreaking Mexican Filmmakers to Celebrate This Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo can be a puzzling holiday for some Americans. First, there is the prevailing notion that May 5 is Mexico’s equivalent of the United States’ July Fourth. In fact, Cinco de Mayo is the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, during which Mexico defended itself against French invasion in a proverbial David versus Goliath clash.
Michael Almereyda, Sara Colangelo, and Kenny Riches Offer Up Advice on Making a Short Film
Last week, Sundance Institute and the Knight Foundation held ShortsLab Miami, a free workshop dedicated to informing and supporting aspiring filmmakers in an open forum. In attendance were filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Sara Colangelo, and Kenny Riches, who participated in Q&A discussions moderated by Sundance short film programmer Mike Plante on topics such as the actor-director relationship, transitioning from shorts to feature films, finding financing and producers, and how to engage with and draw inspiration from your local arts community. Below, we’ve distilled the day down to include some of the most enlightening points overheard at ShortsLab Miami.
May Now Playing: “Slow West,” “Results,” and more
Michael Fassbender stars as a bounty hunter in romantic pursuit of a female fugitive in John Maclean’s award winner Slow West, a European rendering of the classic Western that brandishes its six-shooters with a serving of gallows humor. Also coming to theaters in May, director Andrew Bujalski trains his lens on the idiosyncratic world of fitness trainers in Results, starring Guy Pearce, Kevin Corrigan, and Cobie Smulders. Check out all of this month’s releases below.
If You Want Your Stories to Change the World, They Have to Belong to the World
The Skoll World Forum happens in Oxford every April; it is a gathering of over 1,000 social entrepreneurs who are leading organizations that are changing the world, at tremendous scale. From global health to child trafficking, literacy to poverty, climate change to global corruption — the commitment, vision and passion of this community is breathtaking. Every year I meet someone who just picked up her Nobel Prize, or just had lunch with the Dalai Lama, or just helped lead the movement that created 1,000 new health centers in India and is now headed to Africa to do the very same thing.
Filmmaker Dawn Porter on Why She Made ‘TRAPPED,’ a Documentary on U.S. Abortion Rights
Thirty percent of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Nearly half of these women live at or below the federal poverty line, and they’re four times more likely to be women of color. Startling statistics like these are why I’m making the documentary TRAPPED.
“Fun Home” Nominated for 12 Tony Awards
It was a prolific morning for Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori’s Fun Home, which garnered 12 Tony Award nominations today, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. Kron and Tesori’s adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir of the same name was developed in part at the 2012 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. After a critically acclaimed run Off-Broadway in 2013-2014, Fun Home made its Broadway premiere on April 19 at Circle In the Square Theatre.
Film Financing 101 with ‘Hellion’ Director Kat Candler
Last week’s Female Filmmakers Initiative Financing Intensive was exactly that—intense. But greatly so. It was a jam-packed day of intimate round tables, case studies, disheartening research coupled with empowerment coaching and Q&As with venture capitalists, financiers, and digital media leaders.
Your Favorite Sundance Films Have a New State-of-the-Art Home
Lebec, California. I’d never been there, and as I drove north from Los Angeles, I worried that I’d miss the freeway exit. Fifty-seven miles came and went, but the surrounding hillside looked nothing like where I was supposed to be.
Contemplating the Cut: Jonathan Oppenheim on the State of the Nonfiction Film Editor
On April 18, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship hosted a half-day of panel discussions with a gathering of documentary film editors, directors, and producers to discuss the art of editing. The goal of the day and future events is to shine a light on the role of the editor in the filmmaking process, build community, and celebrate an underexplored and often misunderstood collaboration between director and editor. The day began with a keynote from Jonathan Oppenheim (Paris is Burning, The Oath), included here.
Sundance Institute Announces 2015 and 2016 International Film Festivals In Hong Kong and London
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today that it will continue its film festivals in Hong Kong this year and London next year, with selections for each largely drawn from the Institute’s renowned Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, U.S.A.