This week, we’ve reached into the Sundance vaults to pull out two weird and wild tales that will challenge and delight. From the sordid brain of Joe Sedelmaier comes Openminds, an attempt to recount the life and times of Raymond E. Bowles, one of our nation’s great visionaries who you have probably never heard of, made famous for his artificial trees that seem just like the real things.

Featured Composers Include Rolfe Kent (Up In The Air), Clint Mansell (Black Swan), Thomas Newman (American Beauty) and Aaron Zigman (The Notebook)
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced that its Film Music program will host ComposersLab: LA, a one-day workshop for film music composers, on Saturday, May 18 at the Downtown Independent Theatre in Los Angeles (251 S. Main St.).

Since 2007, Sundance Institute has been thrilled by the vibrant work coming out of the New Frontier exhibition and performance space at the Sundance Film Festival. Senior Programmer Shari Frilot and the New Frontier artists have been on the forefront of a sea change in the way media and technology are enabling story creation. In 2011, Sundance Institute deepened its investment in this space by launching the New Frontier Story Lab.

After four extraordinary days in Colombia, I may just be starting to get a feel for this disarmingly complex place. Friendly, welcoming, laid back in most respects, these people wrestle with powerful issues, many surfacing during our screenings in unexpected ways. With the Film Forward team, I’ve traveled with The Loving Story first to Bogota, then to Bucaramanga, then to Medellin—urban to rural and back to relatively urban again.

Tickets now on sale online.
The O2, 22 March 2013 — Sundance Institute and The O2 announced today that three feature films have been added to the programme for the second Sundance London film and music festival, 25-28 April at The O2.

This has been an amazing roller coaster of a month working with my son Gilbert and Frankie on this Kickstarter campaign while they try to raise the budget for their new film Snap Shot. I’ve never seen two guys more persistent, creative and passionate about getting their film made than Gilbert and Frankie in my entire career. I’m really proud to be part of this project it has been a very humbling experience to see how projects like these bring our communities together.

Leading off this week’s Shorts Break is filmmaker Rodney Ascher’s The S From Hell, a documentary-cum-horror film about the scariest corporate symbol in history—the 1964 Screen Gems logo, aka ‘The S From Hell.’ Built around interviews with survivors still traumatized from their childhood exposure to the logo after shows like Bewitched or The Flintstones, the film brings their stories to life with animation, found footage, and dramatic reenactments. Not an exhaustive historical documentary, this is a subjective film whose aim is make the audience feel the same fear and confusion as the children who were first confronted by the vexing, unfolding sights and mournful, dissonant sounds that hid in the cracks between their favorite TV shows.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced today that the second trip for  FILM FORWARD: Advancing Cultural Dialogue in Colombia began with a free screening at a binational center in Medellín. The trip will continue through March 23 with free film screenings of eight different films, panel discussions, artist roundtables, events at Javeriana University, Casa de la Cultura de Ciudad Bolivar and Antioquia University as well as guided discussions with filmmakers Nancy Buirski and Jeff Orlowski.  Sundance Channel Global is an official sponsor of the FILM FORWARD program in Colombia.

Welcome back to Shorts Break Friday. First up this week, we have New Media, an insightful American character study from director J.J.

Jerry Rothwell is a British documentary filmmaker. He joins Film Forward in Imperial Valley to screen and discuss his latest film Town of Runners.If in Mexicali, there’s a feeling of being contained by the border fence, that most roads have to end there (see my last Film Forward blog), on the other side of the US border straight highways stretch away into the desert.

As they attempt to raise distribution funds through Kickstarter donations, Sundance alumni Allison Anders and Kurt Voss reflect on the challenges of indie filmmaking by viewing the process through the prism of Zen Buddhism. Although Allison and I have written and directed some 20 movies between us, our latest collaborative feature, Strutter, is to my mind a “first film.” That is to say, it is a film made with beginners’ enthusiasm and a “beginner’s mind”—the latter a Zen concept for approaching a task without preconception, without prejudice, and without allowing experience to limit one’s thinking.

Stacy Peralta is an American filmmaker, former professional skateboarder, and original member of the Z-Boys. He joins Film Forward in Imperial Valley to screen and discuss his latest film ‘Bones Brigade: An Autobiography.’ Read Stacy’s previous blogs here and here.

The O2 — Sundance Institute and The O2 announced that the second Sundance London film and music festival will play host to A Celebration of Muscle Shoals with Gregg Allman and John Paul White of The Civil Wars. On Saturday 27th Aprilat indigo02 in The O2 join Gregg Allman and John Paul White for an intimate sharing of music. This acoustic, 45-minute live performance will take place directly following the film screening.

Mumbai, India — Mumbai Mantra, the media and entertainment division of the Mahindra Group, in collaboration with Sundance Institute, has selected eight Indian Screenwriters and their feature film projects for the second annual Mumbai Mantra | Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, which began Sunday, March 10 at a Club Mahindra Resort and ends Friday, March15.
This year’s Screenwriting Fellows, selected from submissions from around the world, are: Sarthak Dasgupta (The Music Teacher); Pratim D. Gupta (Ink); Nitin Kakkar (Black Freedom); Abhijit Mazumdar (Delirium); Terrie Samundra (Betamax); Renuka Shahane (Tribhanga); Kavanjit Singh (Television); and Neha Sinha (Forgiven).

In the minds of Festival Director John Cooper and Director of Programming Trevor Groth, the difficulties inherent in programming the Sundance London film and music festival tend to look more like opportunities. That is to say, neither Cooper nor Groth appear to be fettered by ingrained concepts of how and where a film festival can and should be run.
Sundance London is now in its second year, following a debut festival rife with equal parts uncertainty and success, the former of which was vanquished by a dedicated contingent of UK film enthusiasts turning out to screenings and events throughout the four-day festival.