The Latest
3 Sundance Filmmakers Contributing to the Dialogue Around Police Violence
As the national dialogue surrounding police violence continues unabated following two Grand Jury decisions to not indict officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, we turn to film to reflect on how we’ve arrived at the present climate. These three Sundance Institute alumni have already added their voices to the ever-growing conversation about the indelible connection between police brutality and race in America. We hope they will help illuminate the issues at hand in a time of grief and confusion.
“A Space to Explore”: Filmmaker Mike Day on Sundance Institute’s Music and Sound Design Lab
Sundance Institute recently hosted the second edition of the Music and Sound Design Lab for Documentary Film at Skywalker Sound. This unique residency brings together four emerging film music composers with four Documentary Film Program-supported filmmakers and world-class Skywalker sound designers to experiment and discover new possibilities for music and sound design in documentary film. Often over-looked or eschewed by documentary filmmakers in favor of an “intimate” approach to shooting and often constrained by tight budgets, music and sound took center stage at the lab.
Sundance Institute Announces Films in Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, New Frontier for 2015 Sundance Film Festival
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the films selected to screen in the 2015 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Spotlight and Park City at Midnight, as well as the films and installations to be featured in the New Frontier program. The Festival, which takes place January 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah, is the centerpiece of the year-round public programs for the Institute, which also hosts 24 residency labs and grants more than $2.5 million to independent artists each year.
An Insider’s Look at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival Program
It may not nullify the cliché that quality beats quantity, but for the third consecutive year total submissions for the Sundance Film Festival reached 12,000. That conspicuous statistic, however, only tells a small part of the story that Festival Director John Cooper, Director of Programming Trevor Groth, and their team work exhaustively to shape.
Today we revealed the official selections for the U.
Sundance Institute Announces Films in U.S. and World Competitions, NEXT <=> for 2015 Sundance Film Festival
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition NEXT <=> section of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, January 22 to February 1 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Alicia Van Couvering on the 5 Stages of Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Lab
The film business is preoccupied with lists. What other industry spends half of the year doling out awards and rankings? There are the public lists: the top ten’s, the best of’s, the critics’ picks, the shortlists for awards, the awards themselves. The industry lists: X’s to watch, Y’s of the year.
Documentary Film Program Experiences CPH:DOX and the Danish Filmmaking Community
After a week of inspiring statements regarding the importance of cinematic artistry in documentary by, among others, our fearless leader Tabitha Jackson and The Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer, it’s evident that the conversation around the art of non-fiction storytelling is getting louder. That conversation was in full flow in Denmark recently as the DFP attended CPH:DOX to cheer on 11 DFP-supported films in the program, connect with filmmakers outside the orbit of our support, and find exciting new projects and artists at the CPH:FORUM. Joshua Oppenheimer accepts the DOX:AWARD.
December Now Playing: ‘We Are the Giant,’ ‘Difret,’ and more
With the announcement of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival program forthcoming, we round out this year’s slate of Sundance-supported films with a small but vigorous pair of theatrical releases – and a crop of Festival favorites coming to DVD and Blu-Ray in time for the holidays. Greg Barker’s We Are The Giant continues to gain pertinence with the ongoing detainment and trial of one of the film’s primary subjects, activist Maryam Al-Khawaja (read more here), while the Audience Award winner in World Dramatic Competition, Difret, finally brings its engrossing tale of abduction and forced marriage in Ethiopia to theaters.
In Theaters
Friday, December 12
We Are The Giant, directed by Greg Barker
Difret, directed by Zeresenay Mehari
DVD & Blu-Ray
Tuesday, December
Frank, directed by Lenny Abrahamson
Dead Snow 2: Red vs.
5 Sundance Films With Families to Avoid This Thanksgiving
The holidays seem to invariably arrive wrapped in complaints — about premature decor, about delayed shipping, about… family. That last one we hope to preempt this Thanksgiving, if only by way of the old “it could be worse” adage. Dysfunctional families have long made for well-trodden material among indie filmmakers, but these 5 recent Sundance Film Festival selections feature families (I use that term loosely) that straddle everything from the bizarre to the macabre to the downright depressing.
Spirit Awards: ‘Boyhood,’ ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,’ and ‘Whiplash’ Among Sundance-Supported Nominees
Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age epic Boyhood, Ana Lily Amirpour’s genre-bending vampire drama A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and Damien Chazelle’s emotionally taut debut Whiplash led the way for Sundance-supported films at this morning’s announcement of the 2015 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations. Below, we highlight and congratulate all of the Sundance-supported films and filmmakers nominated for awards. The winners will be announced Feb.
Story + Impact = True Love: Matchmaking Filmmakers and Social Entrepreneurs
As filmmakers, we are forever on the hunt for stories. We are greedy for these little delicious nuggets of human experience, placed in some kind of order, an order that elicits emotion. We crave that moment when someone, somewhere, sees something we’ve made, on a big or small screen, and gets a tear in their eye, or laughs out loud or slams their fist into the couch because it’s the only logical reaction.
Inspired By: Ana Lily Amirpour on the Influences Behind ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’
It’s been dubbed (by our own senior programmer John Nein, in fact) the first Iranian vampire western, and who would dare refute that obscure designation? A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night garnered a rapturous reception at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it played in the NEXT section before screening again at this summer’s Sundance NEXT FEST in Los Angeles.
A Girl is set in the fictitious Bad City, a home to debauched drug users and other degenerates where a subdued vampire stalks the denizens. Our vampire, “Girl,” stunningly portrayed by Sheila Vand, only changes her ways upon being seduced by a debonair romantic named Arash.
Welcome to the New Sundance.org
Welcome to the new sundance.org!
We’ve refined and streamlined our design to allow you to more easily connect with the work, ideas, opportunities, and events at Sundance Institute year-round. We hope you will explore, see what we’re up to, and get involved – whether as an artist applying for a Lab or grant, a supporter looking to engage with the Institute, a film lover attending the Sundance Film Festival, or a culture hound looking to connect with great work and a vibrant community.
Sundance Institute Announces Seven Artists Selected for 2015 Playwrights & Composers Retreat at Ucross Foundation, Feb. 2-20
New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the seven artists selected for its 2015 Playwrights & Composers Retreat at Ucross Foundation. The 16th annual writing colony at the 20,000-acre working cattle ranch outside of Sheridan, WY takes place February 2-20. Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the Playwrights Retreat is made possible through the generosity of Ucross Foundation.
Screenwriter John August’s Tips for Telling A Story On Kickstarter
I ‘ve had the privilege of serving as a Creative Advisor at the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab since 2000, working with filmmakers as they get ready to make their next films. In one-on-one meetings, we talk about their scripts, and their ambitions for their films.
In these conversations, I hear myself asking the same questions again and again: “What would happen if.