Thursday’s opening day press conference opened with nothing less than a reference to an American “government in paralysis” – Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford’s allusion to the frustrating inability of the country’s political leaders to compromise with one another. From that sobering reality, however, Redford, Keri Putnam, the Institute’s Executive Director, and John Cooper, the Director of the Sundance Film Festival, pointed out the ways in which artists contribute to a vibrant culture, and what the Institute is doing to be at the forefront of that culture. “The happy thing we’re pretty proud of is that here, for this week, we’re going to see work from artists, who even though their work might be reflective of these hard times, there’s not paralysis here,” Redford said.

Attendees of the Sundance Film Festival know Park City’s Kimball Art Center as the home of the Sundance House Presented by HP—a space dedicated to the discovery of transformative new technologies. But this year, the Kimball will offer visitors a glimpse inside its own cutting edge plans to grow and evolve by displaying five final proposals from world-renowned architects for its upcoming Transformation Project. Visitors to the Sundance House are welcome to vote on their favorites in an online poll, and the jury will announce the winning design in early February.

If cultural historians were to happen upon a time capsule containing the 2012 Sundance Film Festival’s Day One lineup of films, they’d have a comprehensive overview of the breadth and depth of high quality independent filmmaking programmed into this year’s Festival. What’s more, this diverse array of works by established and up-and-coming talents would offer a microcosmic snapshot of the state of our society at large – its passions and preoccupations as well as cultural and creative sensibilities.Because we don’t yet live in a space-age world where it’s possible for one human to see two movies at the same time—hey, few could have ever predicted we’d have talking maps or the toothpaste pump, so don’t rule it out—we dispatched our crack team of writers to attend each Day One screening.

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute today announced that Ice-T and hip hop icons Chuck D (Public Enemy) and Grandmaster Caz will perform at ‘A Celebration of Music in Film’ on January 21 at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. ‘A Celebration of Music in Film,’ one of the most anticipated music events at the annual Festival, this year celebrates SOMETHING FROM NOTHING: THE ART OF RAP, by director Ice-T, co-director Andy Baybutt and producer Paul Toogood.
The event takes place Saturday, January 21, 8:30 p.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina, director Benh Zeitlin was crashing on a friend’s floor in New Orleans. The Queens native had been living abroad scouting locations for his seafaring short film, Glory at Sea. “I didn’t want to be an expat; I wanted to tell stories about America,” says Zeitlin of his turn to the Big Easy.

We were mildly terrified as we drove up the mountain to Park City for the first time. Prior to American Splendor, we had received several rejections for shorts and docs; so the Sundance Film Festival became some mythical, unattainable thing for us. We were just getting over the excitement of getting into the Festival (and the Dramatic Competition section, no less) when we realized we had to face skeptical audiences, tough jurors, and scary critics.

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute announced today a range of digital initiatives that will allow independent film-loving audiences to follow and engage with the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival begins today and runs through January 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. A complete list of films and events is available at www.

Los Angeles, CA (January 18, 2012) – Sundance Institute announced thirteen films supported by the Institute that are for the first time available to rent, download and stream. Look for the films on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, SundanceNOW and YouTube. Films will be available on Netflix on March 1.

Calvin Lee Reeder’s story isn’t unfamiliar to his fellow filmmakers — or to anyone with an interest in independent film. His debut feature, The Oregonian, which screened at the 2011 Festival, is an atmospheric thriller about a woman running from her past. Reeder described The Oregonian to twitchfilm.

Fredrik Gertten sounds weary. And he should. The documentary filmmaker has spent the last two years dealing with the fallout from a lawsuit filed against him by the Dole Food Company after he made a film, Bananas!*, chronicling Nicaraguan plantation workers’ legal efforts to seek reparations for suffering the ill effects of pesticides used by Dole with its banana crops.

Somewhere between the mind-blowing performances by musical luminaries like Lou Reed and Lyle Lovett — and once prospective talents like St. Vincent and The Civil Wars — the Sundance Film Festival music program has transformed from musical diversion to main event. Put simply, audiences in 2012 will be treated to a multi-faceted Festival of not only sound and vision, but to true visionaries in the realm of sonic artistry and entertainment.

“Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die”
-Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
The Sundance Film Festival began showing short films in 1991. Among the selections that year was The Passion of Martin, a 49-minute “brilliantly-paced black comedy” (according to then shorts programmer John Cooper’s catalog note) directed by a recent UCLA graduate named Alexander Payne.

At Sundance Institute, artists are at the center of our mission and represent an integral part of our community. It’s important for us to keep the voices and perspectives of our alumni as a central part of all that we do, and our Alumni Advisory Board is one of the ways we do just that. This year, we’ve assembled 15 amazing alumni to advise us on Institute programs and to share their stories with you.