The buzz about Jamie Travis’s feature debut, For a Good Time, Call…, is that it’s a comedy starring raunchy women. That’s technically true: The movie is about two women who have good reason to strongly dislike one another a full 10 years after they first met, and who end up living together and starting a phone sex business—but to pass the film off as some imitative descendant of Bridesmaids would sell it short. For a Good Time, Call.

Every January, over 1,800 volunteers ascend to Park City, Utah, to work tirelessly for no pay. Last night, Sundance Institute offered its thanks by throwing them a party. It was just one event on Volunteer Appreciation Day, which also included a special film screening for volunteers and a vignette before every film that screened at the Festival thanking the volunteers for their service.

Marshall Lewy premiered more than his film, California Solo, at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. As he came out to welcome an enthusiastic crowd Wednesday night, he also revealed his one-month old daughter, Beatrice, who actually waved a tiny hand to the audience. It was a sign of good things to come.

BMI, the music company that manages licensing fees for musicians, gathered no fewer than 17 Festival directors and film composers on stage at the BMI Roundtable Discussion: Music and Film, the Creative Process at the Sundance House on Wednesday. Aligning everyone’s schedules so they could participate and disclose some aspects of the director-composer relationship is difficult enough. But getting the many panelists to find the common ground necessary to converse among themselves, is an indication of the love of film the Festival engenders and the collegiality BMI encourages among its musicians.

Few filmmakers have the kind of range that James Marsh has, alternating between crowd-pleasing, Oscar-winning documentaries (Man on Wire) and pitch-black neo-noir policiers (Red Riding Trilogy: 1980). One year after his Oscar shortlisted doc Project Nim premiered on opening night of the Festival, Marsh was back in Park City on Tuesday night for the world premiere of his latest dramatic film, Shadow Dancer. A gripping, masterfully spare tale of betrayal set in sectarian, Troubles-era Belfast, Shadow Dancer is about a young IRA operative faced with an impossible choice—to accept incarceration and abandon her son, or betray her family, and her cause, by turning informant.

Mahindra is a $14.4 billion multinational company from India that employs over one million people worldwide. Because of a partnership with Sundance Institute, it is now the happy agent of change for deserving filmmakers across the globe who want to see their artistic visions realized.

Though it’s never been easy to make independent films—not by a long shot—the current economic climate has only made it harder to finance, produce, and distribute the kinds of films that Sundance was created to showcase. This reality makes community-building events like Sunday’s annual Producers Luncheon all the more vital. As attendees chatted over omelettes and mimosas at The Shop—a beautiful old warehouse that normally serves as a yoga studio—Sundance Institute leaders handed out grants, introduced Fellows, and praised the work of producers—the unsung heroes of independent film.

Phoebe Joecks remembers the first day she volunteered for the Sundance Film Festival. Joecks is by profession a “freelance operations maven,” as she calls it. So when she volunteered at the 2008 Festival and was assigned to the Library Theatre, she already had a working background in festival logistics.

Sleepwalk with Me is much funnier than the outline of its plot indicates: A man has lived with his girlfriend for eight years, but doesn’t really love her. Succumbing to family pressures, the couple gets engaged. His anxieties manifest themselves in a disorder that is eventually diagnosed as rapid eye movement behavior disorder, which causes its sufferers to actually act out the dream they are experiencing.

Erstwhile Indie Queen, sardonic girl next door and trailblazer for a generation of quirked-out Emmas, Kats and Zooeys — Parker Posey’s reputation precedes her. She first came to Sundance in 1995 with Party Girl, the film that introduced the world to her unique blend of crush-worthy beauty and self-effacing comedic chops. And she last swept through Park City when she served as a juror for the US Dramatic Competition in 2010.

We’re at the midway point of the Festival and the quality—and quantity—of #Sundance photos on Instagram is not letting up. Day Five gives us a look at packed theatres, a view through 3D glasses, and an invisible Sean Penn?

Don’t forget to use #sundance when posting to Instagram so your photo has a chance of making our daily roundup. And also follow us on Instagram at username sundanceinstitute.

On Monday morning, a small crowd of filmmakers, philanthropists, and media leaders gathered at the Park City home of Jacki Zehner to hear Sundance Institute executive director Keri Putnam and Women in Film Los Angeles President Cathy Shulman announce a collaborative effort to support women working in narrative and documentary independent film. The brunch was co-hosted by Zehner, Putnam, Schulman, and Sundance Institute Trustee Pat Mitchell.Lauren Greenfield (Queen of Versailles), Katie Aselton (Black Rock), and Sheila Johnson were among the 120 guests treated to brunch served with Wonder Woman-themed party ware and complimentary handbags provided by Coach.

PARK CITY, UT – Sundance Institute and Mahindra today announced the winners of the 2012 Sundance Institute | Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, in recognition and support of emerging independent filmmakers from around the world. The winning directors and projects are:Etienne Kallos, Vrystaat (Free State) from South Africa; Ariel Kleiman, Partisan from Australia; Dominga Sotomayor, Late To Die Young from Chile; and Shonali Bose, Margarita. With A Straw from India.

Recognizing what is dubbed the Festival’s most innovative and experimental program, the Sundance Film Festival Awards for Best Short Films were just announced in a location that most definitely subverts expectations: the Jupiter Bowl, an irreverent, fluorescently-lit, DJ pulsing mega-bowling-plex. The awards were hosted by actress Michaela Watkins who described coming back to Sundance with her second film as returning to summer camp “when your boobs come in.”
Out of the nearly 7,000 short films submitted to the Festival, 64 films were accepted into the Short Film program presented by Yahoo! The 7 favorites below were selected for awards by three jurors: Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill creatorMike Judge; the director of the award-winning short film and subsequent feature film Pariah, Dee Rees; and Shane Smith, director of public programs at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Earlier this week, a newly restored print of writer/director Julie Dash’s vibrant homage to her Gullah ancestors, Daughters of the Dust, screened at the Egyptian Theatre as part of the “From the Collection” program. The Collection is a partnership between Sundance Institute and the UCLA Film and Television Archive to provide an archive devoted to both preserving and offering access to indie films that might have otherwise disappeared.
Visually stunning and impressionistic in style, it’s no wonder Daughters of the Dust won the 1991 Festival’s Excellence in Cinematography Award.