The Latest
Jesse Moss On The Role of Empathy in Making The Overnighters
From Iraqi role-players to a demolition derby driver to an Ivy League impostor—provocative, unique, and emotionally compelling characters have always been central to Jesse Moss’s storytelling. The latest film by this award-winning documentary filmmaker and cinematographer is no exception. The Overnighters, which recently premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Intuitive Filmmaking, follows a Lutheran pastor in the oil boomtown of Williston, North Dakota.
October Now Playing: Miles Teller Wields the Sticks in Whiplash
Five award winners from the 2014 Sundance Film Festival make their way to theaters this October, led by the Grand Jury Prize winner Whiplash, starring Miles Teller as a tenacious drum virtuoso training under the tutelage of a notoriously demanding mentor in J.K. Simmons.
Q&A: Hong Khao on His Wistful Sundance Drama ‘Lilting,’ Starring Ben Whishaw
There is a discouraging paradox that exists in today’s climate of connectivity. While we are ostensibly more connected than ever, we are perhaps becoming more socially inept. Lilting, director Hong Khao’s wistful drama starring Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei, flips that contemporary notion on its head in a poignant study of communication and personal connection.
Hong Kong Report: Sundance Directors’ Advice to Aspiring Filmmakers
Seven million people live in Hong Kong, an area that’s just half the size of Rhode Island. The waterfront skyline is a mashup of skyscrapers and mountains. The humidity makes the air heavy and still.
Guest Blog: Detroiters talk Fruitvale Station
Shawntai Genell Brown is a freelance blogger, playwright, storyteller and poet living in Detroit, Michigan. She is sharing her experience of Film Forward: Michigan on her blog: Shawntai’s Spiral Notebook.
Last night at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History, Detroiters kept the moderator dancing the mic around the room, giving voices with something to say a chance with the talking stick.
What’s In a Website? Designing The Look and Feel of Your Film’s Site
In 2014, most every filmmaker knows that it’s important to build a website for your project. But how many of us know enough about programming or design to create a site that serves as a fitting representation of the project, let alone one that functions as a tool for both marketing and audience building? “As you add networks and outlets to your film’s identity, and as that footprint grows and grows, one of the first things that slips, because most of us can’t afford a full-time graphic designer, is the look and feel of your film,” said Joseph Beyer, director of digital initiatives for Sundance Institute. At IFP week in New York, the #ArtistServices panel entitled “Designing Your Look and Feel—What We Love Right Now” strove to address that very slippage.
ArtistServices Miami Workshop: October 25th, 2014
Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation present:#ArtistServices Maimi Workshop
Sundance Institute and Knight Foundation invite you to enjoy exclusive access to the first annual #ArtistServices Miami Workshop free of charge. Join these unique conversations with industry experts as they discuss the latest technology, tools, and tactics in Creative Financing, Digital Distribution, Guerilla Marketing and Independent Theatrical Distribution. Stay tuned for presenters and full schedule to be announced.
Grand Opening of Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects
(September 19, 2014) Sundance Institute and The Metroplex officially unveiled the opening of Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects tonight on September 19, which is a screening series of new American independent films accompanied by a delegation of filmmakers and Festival organizers. The screenings run from today to 28 September, 2014, at the newly opened Cineplex, The Metroplex, in Kowloon Bay in Hong Kong. Drawing on the Sundance Film Festival’s 30-year history of discovery and innovation and The Metroplex’s commitment to supporting film culture, Sundance Film Festival – Hong Kong Selects offers eight new films direct from the 2014 Festival in Park City, Utah, U.
2015 Sundance Film Festival Kicks Off for Utah Residents
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute will once again offer exclusive events and priority pass and ticket availability for the approximately 15,000 Utahns who attend the Sundance Film Festival® each year. Additionally, the Institute announced today the Grand Theatre at Salt Lake Community College’s Center for Arts & Media as its newest Salt Lake City screening venue and that it will offer a new Grand Pass for Utah residents. With the addition of the Grand Theatre, Salt Lake City will see an increase of 20,000 seats over the course of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, January 22 through February 1.
Sundance Institute Selects 10 Writers for Inaugural Episodic Story Lab
Park City, UT — Sundance Institute today announced the 10 writers selected for its inaugural Episodic Story Lab, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from September 27 through October 2. The Episodic Story Lab, established with founding support from Lyn and Norman Lear, is the Institute’s first program for emerging writers creating series for television and online platforms, adding to its existing support programs for film, theatre, music, and New Frontier artists.
Every applicant for the program was required to submit a spec pilot and series overview as the basis of their creative work at the Lab.
Film Editor Alex O’Flinn on What He Took Away from the Sundance Labs
Alex O’Flinn was the recipient of the 2014 Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship. He most recently edited The Rider, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. As part of his fellowship year, he worked with editor mentors Dylan Tichenor (Zero Dark Thirty), Stephen Mirrione (The Hunger Games), and Douglas Crise (Spring Breakers).
Kickstart The Genius of Caring, an Alzheimer’s Web Project Rooted in Compassion
A world bereft of compassion is an unnecessarily cruel one. For sufferers of Alzheimer’s, their families, and their caregivers, such a world is far too often the reality. When Banker White’s mother Pam began experiencing the initial symptoms of Alzheimer’s, rather than withdrawing, he committed to opening the doors to the merciless disease by documenting her struggle in what would become The Genius of Marian, an elegiac documentary that depicted Pam and her family’s new existence (and an extension of Pam’s unfinished book about her own mother Marian Wlliams Steele, who passed from Alzheimer’s years prior).
#Twinning: Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig Play Estranged Siblings in ‘The Skeleton Twins’
Prior to its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, The Skeleton Twins had been billed as a non-comedy starring Saturday Night Live vets Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as estranged siblings. As it turns out, this description isn’t quite accurate. While the film is at times a very affecting and penetrating drama, it also contains as many genuine laughs as any “drama” in recent memory.
Human Rights Activist and Sundance Maryam al-Khawaja Detained In Bahrain
Maryam al-Khawaja, the notable Bahraini human rights defender and subject of We Are the Giant (2014 SFF), was arrested August 30 upon her arrival in Manama, Bahrain, on charges of assaulting a police officer – which she refutes – and other alleged crimes related to her work in human rights. Maryam was returning to see her ailing father and longtime activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is currently on a hunger strike while serving a lifetime sentence for charges stemming from human rights demonstrations in 2011.
Zainab and Maryam al-Khawaja are sisters and subjects of the film We Are the Giant.
September Now Playing: Memphis, The Skeleton Twins, and more
As we collectively lament the closing days of summer, a handful of new releases help usher in a promising fall season for indie film. The ever-enigmatic singer-songwriter Willis Earl Beal offers a captivating portrayal of a musician caught in the trap of creative inertia in Memphis, and Belle & Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch officially makes his foray into filmmaking with the pensive musical drama God Help The Girl. Bringing some levity to the month’s releases – though still sharp and thoughtful – is Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins, which tracks the reunion of estranged twins expertly played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig.