New York, NY — Sundance Institute has announced the first-ever New York benefit celebrating its Theatre Program, the leading play development program in the United States. Taking place on the evening of Monday, March 12 at venues in lower Manhattan, the event will be hosted by Sundance Institute President & Founder Robert Redford and feature performances by some of the theatre world’s top talent, who are also Sundance Institute alumni.
The evening will begin at 7:00 p.

Los Angeles, CA — Ten films supported by Sundance Institute are now available to stream from Netflix. These projects are participating in the Institute’s Artist Services program, which provides Institute artists with exclusive opportunities for creative self-distribution, marketing and financing solutions for their work.
The films include Semper Fi: Always Faithful, Obselidia (Independent Spirit Award Winner), Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007 Sundance Film Festival documentary on the arcade gamer competitions in the ‘80s), New York Times Critic’s Pick Lord Byron and 1994 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award Winner What Happened Was … by Tom Noonan.

Mr. Ahadi’s film “The Green Wave” shows the audience a harrowing and poignant look at the contested Iranian election of 2009. From cleverly created animated sequences of anecdotes of individual experiences to testimonies of people who were present and opinions of outside observers, “The Green Wave” tells the story of a people’s desperate cry for honest representation within the yoke of one of the world’s most ruthless and backwards regime’s attempts to survive in its war against the rest of world while claiming to give itself a shred of legitimacy.

Enemies of the People was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Our lives have changed dramatically in the two years since our film Enemies of the People premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. What had been a very secret film in the making suddenly became very public, and its public life has been incredibly varied and intense.

London, Monday 27 February 2012, The O2 — Sundance Institute and The O2 today announced that musician, producer and actor Tricky will reunite on stage with vocalist/musician Martina Topley-Bird for the first time in 15 years to perform his award-winning debut album Maxinquaye in its entirety on Friday, 27th April, 2012 at the first-ever Sundance London as part of the four-day festival’s music programme. Tickets will go on general sale on Thursday 01 March 2012 at www.sundance-london.

“Sundance has a Theatre Program?” As I travel around the country to our different venues to develop new work, this is the question I hear most often as I’m chatting up my seatmates on planes or introducing the Institute to potential collaborators. I have my elevator speech down pat at this point: “Yes, we do have a Theatre Program and we’ve been around since the founding of the Institute almost 30 years ago. In fact, our program has seeded some of the most interesting work that audiences have seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the country, including the runaway hit musical Spring Awakening, indie favorite Passing Strange, and the regional theatre darling Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.

Can you imagine spending 12 years shooting one film about your own family? Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, a Brooklyn-based husband and wife filmmaking team, have been doing just that since 1999. Their film, American Promise, is about race, education, and achievement; it will air on POV in 2013. Michèle and Joe participated in the 2010 and Documentary Composers Lab and the Documentary Edit Lab.

Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Click here for the full list of nominees.Monsieur Lazhar, directed by Philippe Falardeau (Canada)After an elementary school teacher in Montreal commits suicide, Algerian immigrant Bachir Lazhar becomes the unlikely replacement responsible for curtailing the heartbreak.

Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Click here for the full list of nominees.
Margin Call, written by J.

Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Three short films from the 2011 and 2012 Sundance Film Festivals have been nominated for Academy Awards, including two documentary shorts and an animated film. Click here for the full list of nominees.

Leading up to the 84th edition of the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26, we’re profiling all seven of this year’s Sundance-supported Oscar nominees. Click here for the full list of nominees.
Hell and Back Again, directed by Danfung Dennis
Danfung Dennis’ gripping documentary tracks the physical and emotional recuperation of a U.

We want to offer our congratulations to Sally El Hosaini and the entire team behind My Brother the Devil for winning the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the Panorama Section of the 2012 Berlin Film Festival. This seems a fitting occasion to revisit this enlightening profile of El Hosaini — full of insights into her creative process and the socio-cultural realities that inspired the project — published here on the eve of My Brother the Devil’s debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
“Writing and directing are all about listening and watching,” says writer/director Sally El Hosaini, who brings her debut feature film, My Brother the Devil, to the Festival’s World Dramatic Competition section this year.

Each year, Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival make a concerted effort to emphasize the value of the Utah community. We’d like to thank them for welcoming us during the 10 days of the Festival and for being such wonderful hosts. Our appreciation is expressed through a variety of programs, including High School Screenings at the Festival, Filmmakers in the Classroom, Community Screenings, and distribution of complimentary tickets to non-profit organizations across the Wasatch Front.

Heidi Schreck was an actor alumna at the 2008 Theatre Lab and is currently in residence at the Sundance Institute Playwright’s Retreat at Ucross Foundation, Wyoming. The retreat is an 18-day writing colony where five playwrights and two theatre composers convene each year to put pen to paper.For months, Ucross was my Moscow.

Tucson, Arizona – FILM FORWARD: Advancing Cultural Dialogue, an initiative of Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, takes place in Arizona from February 27 through March 1, 2012. In collaboration with The Loft Cinema, FILM FORWARD presents screenings of six films as well as personal appearances and workshops with filmmakers from three of the titles at a variety of community locations in Tucson and Sells, Arizona.
“Film has the power to not only entertain but engage us in stories that transcend cultural differences and geographic boundaries,” said Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam.