Los Angeles, CA. — Sundance Institute announced today the four fellows and projects selected for the 2011 NativeLab Fellowship. Artists selected will be part of a development program aimed at providing continuous and direct support to Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native film artists.

“It’s so fun to be able to explore what your voice is by doing a short film,” said Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, to a wide-eyed crowd at Columbia College Chicago this past Saturday. “For me, I think there are subject matters that lend themselves to the short form. Aspects of life, things that happen, are better suited for a short film.

NEW YORK CITY — The Sundance Institute Theatre Program today announced it will be workshopping from May 17-29, 2011, PAPER DOLLS, a new play written by the Program’s Producing Artistic Director Philip Himberg and directed by Mark Brokaw. This mini-lab will offer Himberg rehearsal space with actors as well as critiques from Institute alumni Doug Wright (I am My Own Wife) and Jessica Hagedorn (Dogeaters). Himberg has adapted the play from documentary film of the same name by Israeli filmmaker Tomer Heymann.

Two Sundance Institute staffers arrived in Michigan for the next stop on the Film Forward tour. A Michigan native and manager of the Institute’s Indigenous Program, D. Owl Johnson discusses his hopes for the next few days while Film Forward manager Brittany Ballard previews upcoming events.

Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson was funded by the ‘Stories of Change’ initiative to create a film based on Skoll-supported social entrepreneur Sakena Yacoobi, a short version of which premiered at the Skoll World Forum in 2010. Johnson attended the Skoll World Forum as a Sundance Institute Doc Program Fellow in April 2011. When I was 16 years old, I had the role of “Marion” in a high school play of Absurd Person Singular by Alain Ayckbourn.

This May the Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program is venturing across Indian Country to bring the Native Forum to Native Lands. This journey coincides with Lab Fellow and Festival Alum Taika Waititi being highlighted as the Sundance Alumni Advisory Board Member of the month. So prepare to be blogged, tweeted, eblasted, and otherwise made aware of 20+ years of Native Cinema made possible by Sundance Institute.

There’s a long-standing joke of how far China is: it’s the other side of the world. When I was little, I would imagine digging through the center of the earth straight to China. The little girl I saw on the opposite side of the planet was part doppelganger, part alien.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 14 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah May 30 – June 30, 2011.  Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Director of the Sundance Feature Film Program, and the artistic direction of Gyula Gazdag, the projects selected for this year’s program include emerging filmmakers and projects from the United States, Israel, Romania, Mexico, the Philippines and Algeria. Sundance Institute is marking the 30th anniversary of its first Directors Lab, led by Robert Redford and Satter in 1981.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On May 12, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the nonprofit Sundance Institute will showcase five U.

(Los Angeles, CA – April 26, 2011) – Sundance Institute, the world-renowned nonprofit arts organization, has announced it will host its first-ever Los Angeles benefit on Wednesday, June 8 from 7:00 – 10:00 PM at Franklin Canyon Ranch in Beverly Hills, CA. Celebrate Sundance Institute, a festive evening to celebrate the Institute founded by Robert Redford, will be hosted by the Sundance Institute Board of Trustees and Celebration Host Committee including Sundance Alumni Jennifer Aniston, Miguel Arteta, Don Cheadle, Lisa Cholodenko, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jon Hamm, Brit Marling, David Hyde Pierce, Josh Radnor, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Quentin Tarantino, Ondi Timoner, Mike White and Alfre Woodard among others. Full host committee listed below.

Lixin Fan participated in Film Forward China with his film Last Train Home and as an Advisor for the Documentary Workshops with CNEX in Beijing. His experience was unique, as he is a Chinese filmmaker and knows firsthand the challenges of making and exhibiting a film in China as well as the nuances of a Chinese audience. We had the great privilege of screening Lixin’s film to a Chinese student audience for the first time in Beijing and then on two more occasions in Wuhan and Xi’an.

This blog is via blackberry, written on the bus in an April snowstorm en route to Calgary for my flight home from an unforgettable week at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at The Banff Centre.This same week I celebrated my one-year anniversary at Sundance Institute, and I can think of no more fitting way to have spent it than in the mountains among an exceptionally diverse and exciting group of new artists and Advisors collaborating to develop new work. I had forgotten the breathtaking surprise of leaving Calgary for the climb up the mountain pass to Banff, as the Rockies emerge and then encircle the horizon as the trip continues.

When the Film Forward program set out for Nashville almost two weeks ago, I was elated to be part of the team. I had never spent much time in the South and wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but having worked with The Belcourt on multiple Sundance projects, I knew I would be in for a treat.
Outside the Belcourt Theater.