The Latest

Shorts Break: Let’s Get Funny

Before becoming a writer-producer (and voice) on Family Guy and The Cleveland Show, John Viener wrote and directed some comedy shorts about messed-up white men. In Lighten Up, Viener also acts a man who must get a ride to the doctor for an unusual personal problem. And only his angry-white-guy buddy is available.

Creative Matchmaking: Duncan Cork and Slated Connect Filmmakers with Investors

As San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Ted Hope—a man who keeps a discerning finger on the pulse of the indie film world—delivered his opening salvo at last April’s #ArtistServices Workshop, he addressed a curious dichotomy facing independent filmmakers.
“The irony of the times is that despite the abundance of content today, people seem to discover less movies, find less things that they care about, and get stuck in echo chambers. How do we solve it?”
There emerged a palpable frustration in his tenor that vacillated between anger and hope.

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Sundance Institute Selects Seven Projects for 2013 Theatre Lab at Sundance Mountain Resort, July 8-28

Paula Vogel, Taylor Mac and Jackie Sibblies Drury to Work on Their Latest Scripts
Seven East African Theatre Fellows to Join the Lab
New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the seven projects selected to participate in the 2013 Theatre Lab, July 8-28 at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah. Under the supervision of Philip Himberg, Artistic Director, and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the Theatre Lab is the centerpiece of the Sundance Institute’s Theatre Program’s year-round work and is designed to support emerging and established artists and to create a place where their original work can be effectively mentored and challenged.
The seven playwrights selected for the 2013 Theatre Lab in Sundance, Utah are: Adam Bock (The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Jackie Sibblies Drury (Really Really Really Really Really), Taylor Mac (The Fre), Mona Mansour (The Vagrant), Qui Nguyen (War is F**king Awesome).

Sundance Institute Selects Four Short Film Projects for 2013 NativeLab Fellowship

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the four fellows and short film projects selected for the 2013 NativeLab Fellowship, a two-stage development program that provides continuous and direct support to Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native film artists. For the first stage, filmmakers participate in an intensive four-day workshop (May 20-24) on the homelands of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico. The second stage brings Fellows to the Native Forum during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in January and provides opportunities for them to meet and hear from film industry professionals.

Listen to the ComposersLab: LA Spotify Playlist

On May 18 in Los Angeles, the Sundance Institute Film Music Program will host the third annual ComposersLab: L.A. featuring a series of informative conversations and interactive networking opportunities with renowned composers and industry professionals.

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Meet the 2013 Hilton LightStay Sustainability Award Winners

As part of Hilton Worldwide’s support of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP), the winners of this year’s Hilton Worldwide LightStay Sustainability Fund & Award participated in interviews to talk about their documentary film projects. LightStay is Hilton Worldwide’s proprietary system for sustainability performance and a core foundation of the company’s global sustainability strategy. The fund and award will go towards supporting the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, as well as annually recognizing and awarding grants to up to five documentary film projects focusing on sustainability issues.

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Documentary Filmmaker Annie Roney on Finding Your Audience in the Educational Market

Annie Roney is managing director and founder of ro*co films. After nine years working with a top industry distributor, Annie founded ro*co films in 2000 with two complimentary ideas: the belief that a well-told, well-researched and emotionally driven documentary can challenge the way people think about issues in every corner of the globe; and, to be entrusted with the distribution of these stories, ro*co needed to be in service to the filmmaker first and foremost.Your company launched an educational division in 2009.

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler to be Honored with Vanguard Award

Event Takes Place June 5 in Los Angeles, Hosted by Tiffany & Co.
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced filmmaker Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) will be honored with the Vanguard Award, presented by Tiffany & Co. Actress Kerry Washington will present the award to Coogler at the third annual ‘Celebrate Sundance Institute’ benefit on June 5, 2013 in Los Angeles.

Sundance Institute Selects 13 Projects for 2013 June Directors and Screenwriters Labs

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 13 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 27 through June 27. Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, and the artistic direction of Gyula Gazdag, the Fellows selected for this year’s program include emerging filmmakers and projects from the United States, Europe, Mexico, Peru and Somalia.
At the Directors Lab, Fellows work with an accomplished group of Creative Advisors, professional actors and production crews to shoot and edit key scenes from their screenplays.

Shorts Break: Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight

Eliza Hittman’s Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight bristles with the kind of authenticity and longing that most feature films struggle to communicate. With a clarity of vision, the short details a Russian teen in Brooklyn who makes an unimaginable choice in order to protect her aging father. Hittman’s natural gifts for honing in on inner teenage struggles blossomed with her debut feature It Felt Like Love, a similarly toned character study that brings out rarely-represented NYC environments.

Jordan Wrap-Up: Sharing Stories Half a World Away

In FILM FORWARD’S first trip to the Arab World, Jordan proved to be a great location. Filmmakers Ligiah Villalobos (screenwriter for La Misma Luna) and Laura Nix (co-director of The Light In Her Eyes) traveled to Jordan to participate in the program by screening their films and hosting Q&A’s and discussions throughout the week.  
Team FILM FORWARD was based in Amman and held programs throughout the city and also took day trips to other rural communities within the area including Salt, Madaba and Karak.

​Graef Allen’s Digital Cinema Mastering 101 for Indies​

When Graef Allen, manager of content services at Dolby Laboratories in Burbank California, took the floor at the first-ever #ArtistServices San Francisco Workshop last month, she addressed the room of attendees with a raw disclaimer.

Allen conceded that her presentation was not for the faint of heart, despite its euphemistical title, “Digital Cinema Mastering 101 for Indies.” Rather, this would be an arduous crash course in the teachings of digital cinema mastering and distribution, navigating the shallow ends of the technical terrain inherent in post-production.

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner on Creating ‘A Total Disruption’

Fellow Sundancers, as you may know, I am a two-time Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning documentary filmmaker (best known for DIG! and We Live in Public), and my main focus for the past two years has been A Total Disruption, a portal which seeks to tell emotionally engaging stories about top entrepreneurs and innovators who are using technology to re-design the world we live in.The mission is to humanize technology and make it more accessible so that everyone can apply its wisdom to do what they envision—better, faster, and more efficiently. I realized that there are too many incredible wizards rethinking and inventing the way we live to wait to hone it down to a 90-minute film (where many of them will end up on the cutting-room floor), so I decided to use the very thing I’m obsessively following, the internet, to pull back the veil on the filmmaking process and directly share the inspiring portraits of driving innovators as I find them.

Chloe Zhao on ‘Lee,’ a Modern Tale of Native American Teen Life

Chloé Zhao is a New York–based independent filmmaker from Beijing, China, and an alum of the 2012 Screenwriters and Directors Labs.
I was very fortunate to participate at the Sundance Institute January Screenwriters Lab in 2012 with my screenplay Lee, a modern story about three Lakota teens who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Their story is in the here and now and captures not only the challenges in their lives but also the unique humor, tremendous beauty, and the great sense of family that runs strong throughout the Lakota community.

Shorts Break: Two Films About People Stuck In Unfamiliar Worlds

Topaz Adizes is a man on a mission. An internationally award-winning filmmaker whose many shorts have screened all the over the world, he puts substance into his works. Typically, his films are shot with very basic elements and a free-form style, almost resembling low-budget documentaries.