The last time Craig Zobel was at the Library Center Theatre, he wasn’t sure he’d make it out. After premiering his film Compliance at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the film’s post-screening Q&A session was reduced to a shouting match as a bellicose audience member lobbed criticisms at the director’s intentions with the film. This time around, the drama stayed on the screen.

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups from the previous day’s events.

I ’ll admit it: I flinched. Even though I was consciously wearing a virtual reality device, and though I knew I wasn’t actually standing in a field of buffalo, when a beautiful beast approached from the left and brought his giant head up to “mine,” I flinched. The sensation wasn’t exactly on the level of people running out of the way of the Lumiere train, but over a century of motion pictures later, it would seem to be in the same league.

The notions of change and independence made for prominent themes at yesterday’s Day One Press Conference, the perennial kick-off to the Sundance Film Festival that saw Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford, Festival Director John Cooper, and Executive Director Keri Putnam setting the scene for the 10 days to come.
For his part, Redford offered an assured perspective on the value of both themes, and particularly the necessity to embrace change and preserve independence in the arts. “I believe change is inevitable,” he said.

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for roundups from the previous day’s events.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced that the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s ‘A Celebration of Music in Film’ concert on January 25 will be a tribute to jazz icon Nina Simone, who is the subject of What Happened, Miss Simone?, from director Liz Garbus and making its world premiere in the Festival’s Documentary Premieres section. Performing at the event will be Common, Erykah Badu, Aloe Blacc, Kate Davis, Andra Day and Al Schackman, Simone’s long time guitarist/musical director who appears in the film. The event is hosted by the Sundance Institute Film Music Program.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have announced French writer-director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre as winner of the 2015 Sundance Institute/NHK Award for her upcoming debut feature film, Mustang. The award will be presented at a private ceremony at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Clermont-Tonnerre is currently a screenwriting fellow at the 2015 Sundance Institute January Screenwriters Lab.

Director Damien Chazelle’s fruitful year has finally come full circle. Almost a year to the day since it first premiered for rapt audiences at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize winner Whiplash received Oscar nominations this morning for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound Mixing. Also earning an Oscar nod for the film was J.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced that it will present Alejandro G. Iñárritu with its Vanguard Leadership Award at the fifth annual Sundance Institute benefit on June 2, 2015 in Los Angeles. The evening brings the creative community together to highlight both a great visionary in independent film as well as an emerging artist with unique talent and creative independence.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute, in collaboration with the Skoll Foundation, will broaden the scope of the Sundance Institute | Skoll Stories of Change initiative, which connects independent storytellers with renowned social entrepreneurs to support the creation of films that shine a spotlight on solutions to urgent social issues.
With an additional $2.5 million grant from the Skoll Foundation, the initiative will expand to include feature film and new media artists as well as documentary filmmakers.