Category: From the Labs

What’s it like going through Sundance Institute’s signature summer labs? We caught up with a few of the 2019 Directors Lab fellows to get their quick takes on what it was like to fine-tune their projects with support from world-renowned creative advisors and fellow directors in the Utah mountains.
Joey Ally

Joey Ally works with actress Whitney Palmer on set. © 2019 Sundance Institute | Photo by Dan Campbell
Joey Ally stars in her musical, surrealist project The Hater as Dorothy, who gets fired for her liberal extremist views and retreats to her conservative Texas hometown, where she ends up going undercover as a Republican to run against her childhood bully for state congress.

Erica Tremblay is a documentary filmmaker and
activist who belongs to the Seneca-Cayuga Nation and is also of
Wyandotte heritage. Below she reflects on her experiences as a Native
Filmmakers Lab Fellow and an Indigenous woman filmmaker in the age of
#MeToo.Sgę́:nǫˀ.

The role of the film producer is often obscured by the far-reaching definitions of the job—which are expansive to say the least. With the Feature Film Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship currently accepting applications for the 2019 program, we checked in with 2016 Fellow Mallory Schwartz—and her project Before You Know It (formerly known as Stupid Happy)—to shed light on her journey of producing an independent film. Before You Know It was directed by Hannah Utt and stars Judith Light and Mandy Patinkin alongside co-writers Utt and Jen Tullock.

It’s an artistic process that often goes unheralded, and one that certainly warrants more conversation: the day-to-day work of the nonfiction producer. To coincide with the launch of the 2019 application for the Documentary Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship, we checked in with 2017 Fellow Diane Becker and her project Inventing Tomorrow, which is directed by Laura Nix and premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary “follows six young scientists from Indonesia, Hawaii, India and Mexico as they tackle some of the most complex environmental issues facing humanity today.

Directors Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya attended the 2014 Documentary Edit and Story Lab with their film “The Cinema Travellers,” about the last traveling cinemas in the faraway villages of India. Below, Amit chronicles their time at the lab and the journey to arriving at the final cut of their film.
“We are here to experiment.

The role of the film producer is often obscured by the far-reaching definitions of the job—which are expansive to say the least. To coincide with the launch of the 2019 application for the Feature Film Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship, we checked in with 2017 fellow Lauren McBride—and her project, Selah and the Spades—to shed light on her journey of producing an independent film.
Selah is a film directed by Screenwriters and Directors Lab fellow Tayarisha Poe and follows 17-year-old Selah, who rules the student body of The Haldwell School with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove.

In October, the Stories of Change Lab convened a select group of independent storytellers and social entrepreneurs supported by the Skoll Foundation. The goal of the lab is to nurture collaboration among artists and changemakers in ways that protect the artists’ autonomy and can meet the social impact goals of the social entrepreneurs. Is this a narrow needle to thread? To examine this question, we asked the project team working on Water Inequality in Kenya, a short film at the lab, to share their thoughts on the intersection of art and impact in 50 words or less.

Insecurity had been commonplace for me in the months leading up to the summer of 2018. Seeing that all my friends and mentors had plans and were working on films, being stagnant was the last thing I wanted. The pressure to create weighed heavy on my shoulders as I sat at my desk staring at blank pages, praying for inspiration to descend.

Eimi Imanishi is a Japanese American filmmaker who grew up in France. She directed two award-winning short films: “Battalion to My Beat” and “One-Up.” Imanishi took part in the 2018 Sundance Institute Directors Lab with her project “Doha: The Rising Sun.

One of the challenges of being a young emerging filmmaker, especially one committed to nonfiction storytelling, is imagining a world where your voice and storytelling belong.
In my everyday life, I’ve been blessed to work in a community of artists and mentors that affirms and encourages my work and growth. But the emerging film landscape, the new media world that will arrive faster than many anticipate, is something that I found to be largely inaccessible.

This month we’re spotlighting The Feature Film Program’s post-production support through the Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship and the Editing Residency, which took place this past June in conjunction with our annual Directors Lab.
The Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship honors the memory of beloved Sundance Institute mentor Sally Menke (editor on Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds) and supports an emerging narrative editor in advancing their craft and building their career. The 2018 Fellow is Kate Hackett, whose work includes Amy Adrion’s acclaimed Half the Picture, a feature documentary about women directors in Hollywood, as well as myriad fiction short films.

Filmmaker Meedo Taha participated in Sundance Institute’s annual Screenwriters Intensive with his project “Other People.” The Intensive provides emerging screenwriters the opportunity to hone their craft in a two-day workshop focused on the development of a fiction feature screenplay. Below he shares his insights and creative breakthroughs from that experience.