The Latest

A Closer Look at This Year’s Sundance-Supported Oscar Nominees: ‘Monsieur Lazhar’

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.

A Closer Look at This Year’s Sundance-Supported Oscar Nominees: Short Film

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.

A Closer Look at This Year’s Sundance-Supported Oscar Nominees: Hell and Back Again

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.

Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother The Devil wins Best European Film at 2012 Berlin Film Festival

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.

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Community Outreach at the Festival

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.

Playwright’s Retreat at Ucross

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.

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Sundance Institute: First 2012 Stop For Film Forward Advancing Cultural Dialogue in Arizona

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.

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Sundance Love: Our Valentine’s Day Collection

For many, Valentine’s Day conjures images of couples sprawled across love seats, seductively dropping chocolate truffles into one another’s mouths, all the while gorging on the cinematic bonbons also known as sentimental romantic comedies. Or maybe that’s just me. And while we can’t rectify all of these Valentine’s Day calamities, we can offer a corrective to the crappy films via this curated collection of love stories from the Sundance Film Festival archives.

An Industry Insider’s Top Tips on Cutting a Trailer

Ross Evison has been editing in the film advertising/marketing arena for 12+ years. Creating trailers, promos and TV commercials for major blockbusters to independent features all around the globe. In 2008 he created Dark Soup Films as a back bone for his directing work.

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Kickstarter & Double Fine: A Seismic Shift?

Simon Pulman works for Starlight Runner Entertainment in New York City, specializing in digital strategy and business development. He explores the emerging world of transmedia storytelling and digital business models on his blog at Transmythology.com, and can be followed on twitter at @simonpulman.

Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban Explored in ‘8: The Mormon Proposition’

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in California is unconstitutional. In light of today’s decision, we revisit a documentary most pertinent to the issue of equal marriage rights, particularly the passing of Prop 8 in California. Reed Cowan and Steven Greenstreet’s “8: The Mormon Proposition” premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

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Kickstart 18 Days in Egypt

Jigar Mehta is a digital entrepreneur and video journalist. He is the co-founder of the collaborative storytelling platform GroupStream which powers his documentary project 18 Days in Egypt. Visit the 18 Days in Egypt Kickstarter page to help fund the hiring of young Egyptian journalists and students to travel throughout Egypt to collect stories from the last year.

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The Sundance Film Festival Through the Lens of Terence Nance

Filmmaker and musician Terence Nance premiered his debut feature, An Oversimplification of Beauty, in the New Frontier section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and performed as Terence Etc. at Day 1 of Sundance ASCAP Music Café. The Dallas born, Brooklyn-based artist chronicled his journey with actresses Namik Minter and Chanelle Pearson from the editing room in New York to the snowy hills of Park City:

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