On a rooftop in downtown L.A. last night, Lee Daniel’s Precious and nine other films supported in various ways by Sundance Institute’s programs were honored with Independent Spirit Awards.

It is every filmmaker’s dream to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and my experience this year was so unexpected and so extraordinary that I wanted to say a direct thank you to everyone who made it possible. My film, the documentary A Small Act, tells the story of Chris Mburu, a Kenyan man whose early education was sponsored by a woman from Sweden whom he had never met. By donating roughly $15 a month to an education fund, her small contribution paid off: Chris made it all the way to Harvard Law School and then started his own scholarship program, which now sponsors new generations of Kenyan students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to go to school.

LOS ANGELES—Robert Redford, Founder and President of Sundance Institute, and Wally Weisman, Chairman of the Board, today announced the appointment of Keri Putnam as the Institute’s new Executive Director. “In the spirit of moving forward with new ideas and a fresh approach in the environment that surrounds us, Keri’s appointment reflects the new direction in which Sundance Institute is headed,” Redford said.Putnam, who recently served as President of Production for Miramax Films, the Walt Disney Company’s specialty film division, has an extensive background in independent film production and acquisition, as well as years of experience in programming.

Park City, UT — On Thursday, March 4 at 7 p.m. at the Park City Public Library, Sundance Institute will present a free screening of Hoop Dreams , the revolutionary documentary  that explores issues of race, poverty, and education in modern America through the stories of two aspiring basketball players.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today the projects chosen to participate in its two new Theatre Labs at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) and on Governors Island, to be held in March and June of this year, respectively. Under the artistic direction of Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, the Labs will provide these projects with guidance in the development of new work for the stage.
The pilot Labs were created because of a temporary loss of space at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah, due to renovation.

Ucross, WY – The 2010 Sundance Institute’s Playwrights’ Retreat at Ucross begins today and will run through February 19, 2010. This unique residency program offers six playwrights and two theatre composers — both emerging and established artists — peer mentorship, professional growth, and a chance to explore unpressured creativity at an idyllic working ranch in northeastern Wyoming. The Playwrights Retreat, supported by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, is made possible through the generosity of The Ucross Foundation.

Director Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy intimately portrays a slice of John Lennon’s life, just before he leaps into that explosion known as The Beatles. We meet John (Aaron Johnson) as a rebellious yet sensitive teen, who bunks school authorities and bumps heads with his cultured and forcibly subdued aunt Mimi (Kristen Scott Thomas), with whom he lives. John reunites with his mother, Julia (Ann-Marie Duff) and heartbreakingly and thrillingly enters the world of music as he wrestles with his troubled past.

Twelve is about a coterie of super-rich teens in Manhattan whose ambition is blunted by their vanity and overweening social climbing. They go around the city saying things like, “My dad told me if I don’t get into Harvard, I have to go to Dartmouth” and “Dad’s so pissed I totaled the Porsche.” Among this crew of largely non-likable little twerps are Molly (Emma Roberts), Chris (Rory Culkin), and White Mike (Chace Crawford); White Mike is the protagonist, a once-promising kid who now supplies his friends and acquaintances with the drugs they can easily afford, except for the vicious cocktail of drugs named twelve (so dangerous he refuses to sell it).

Park City, UT-The Jury, Audience, NEXT, and other special award-winners of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival were announced tonight at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony hosted by David Hyde Pierce (star of The Perfect Host which premiered in this year’s Park City at Midnight section) in Park City, Utah. Highlights from the Awards Ceremony can be seen on the Festival website, www.sundance.

Thirty-four films were awarded prizes in 29 categories, honoring both veteran and first-time filmmakers from the U.S. to Spain, Cambodia, and beyond.

As the madness winds down at tonight’s awards ceremony, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival will have been chewed over in a thousand conversations. Yet each topic has an expiration date. Whether it be DIY’s direction, breakout filmmakers, or undiscovered gems, Sundance changes the chatter every year.

It’s hard to deny that higher education gets a bad wrap sometimes. Lackluster student events, hollow campus causes, (occasionally) crappy college radio, even school food – they all go hand-in-hand with some people’s perception of student films. Beyond the food part—because, c’mon, that sneeze guard hardly does the trick—no one here on the Festival staff would agree with the assumption that collegiate-made film is in any way inferior to professional filmmakers’ output.

The group of scientists and filmmakers speaking at the Discovery Panel at Filmmaker Lodge seemed to want to discuss nothing but dinosaurs. Metaphorically speaking, and otherwise.Moderator Joe Palca of NPR led the discussion with Harvard physics professor Peter Galison, paleontologist Paul Sereno, filmmaker Braden King, neuroscientist Darcy Kelley, and filmmaker Diane Bell, whose film Obselidia was the winner of the Alfred P.

Gaspar Noe. Louis C.K.

If you tell one tiny story well, it becomes universal.—Amir Bar-Lev, director of The Tillman SoryPeople, rather than politics or polemics, were what mattered to the directors behind three of the most topical and socially vital films in this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Veteran broadcaster Lynne Kirby moderated “The New War Stories” panel at the Filmmaker Lodge on Monday, which brought together documentarians Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger (Restrepo), Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story), and dramatic filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji (Son of Babylon) to discuss their different approaches to making films about contemporary war and conflict.