News & Stories

A singular film about a singular woman, Dina took snowy Park City by storm earlier this year, winning the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary competition and introducing the world to the one and only Dina Buno. Now, the film is set to make its Los Angeles premiere on Sunday, August 13, at NEXT FEST.

Matt Spicer's directorial debut is a cautionary tale for the social media age, and one shepherded by a patented performance from Aubrey Plaza, who plays an unstable young woman intent on parlaying her obsession with Instagram influencer and lifestyle guru Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) into a picture perfect friendship. As most acts of creepy desperation go, this one eventually fails miserably, but not before Plaza's character cleverly schemes her way into Taylor's life while escalating her own fixation. Spicer's timely satire captures the absurdity and danger of curating our second lives – the ones that play out on digital screens and almost always portray us in our best light.

Fiction and Nonfiction Filmmakers & Mentors Develop Skills and Projects at Labs; Independent Film Leaders Gather for Talks at Invitation-Only Summit

Ava DuVernay Larry Wilmore Peter Bogdanovich Kate Berlant Kate Micucci Natasha Leggero M83 Hundred Waters Joey Bada$$ Quentin Tarantino Dee Rees America Ferrera Electric Guest Sleigh Bells Lizzo Tickets to Music, Movies and Mischief August 10-13 on Sale Now: sundance.org/next span.dfk { white-space: nowrap; } span.dfk::after { content: "|"; padding: 0 10px; } span.dfk:last-child::after { content: ""; padding: 0 0 0 10px; }

Detractors will have you believe Los Angeles is a town too sprawling, too disconnected, too eternally vain to become a whole – let alone argue whether that whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Au contraire! Sundance NEXT FEST, our summer film and music festival eschews Eastside vs Westside, Beach vs Valley, and 405 vs 101 in favor of convening our collective stories and soundtracks at the heavily air conditioned Theatre at Ace Hotel DTLA for a weekend in sweltering August.

New for 2018: Standalone Episodic Section, ‘The New Climate’ Returns, Feature Film AwardNow Accepting Feature Film, Short Film, Episodic and Virtual Reality Submissions: sundance.org/submit 2018 Graphics Designed with Students at ArtCenter College of Design

In the annals of storytelling, audio’s legacy is an indelible one. Even among today’s busy media landscape and access to content, audio storytelling flourishes as a home for rich narratives. But what makes for great audio? We turned to BBC’s Simon Pitts for some resources that could go a long way in serving your submission to the BBC and Sundance Institute. Here’s what he had to say.