Category: News

In recognition of her singular filmmaking vision, Dee Rees accepted the Sundance Institute Vanguard Award presented by Acura last night to round out the weekend at NEXT FEST. An alumni of the Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Rees made her directorial debut with “Pariah” at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and returned this year with “Mudbound,” arriving in theaters later this year. With last week’s tragedy in Charlottesville providing yet another glaring reminder of our country’s ongoing fight against hate and discrimination, Rees powerfully and poignantly reminded us that we have work to do, and that we’re more than capable of it.

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Program will convene in the mountains of Utah July 31 – August 6, including 11 feature film and documentary filmmakers participating in the weeklong Creative Producing Labs and more than 90 independent filmmakers and industry leaders gathering for the three-day Creative Producing Summit.The Institute’s Creative Producing Program champions the current and next generation of producers, supporting creative vision and best practices from development through distribution in an evolving ecosystem. Across both scripted and nonfiction storytelling from the US and globally, the program provides an unparalleled array of support systems including immersive Labs, the annual Summit, year-round mentorship, granting, financing education and matchmaking, distribution education and opportunities, and network and community building.

Los Angeles, CA — World premiere music videos, conversations between film legends and up-and-coming creatives and three female comedians have been added to the lineup for Sundance NEXT FEST, August 10-13 at The Theatre at Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles. They join music acts like Lizzo, Electric Guest and Sleigh Bells, the Los Angeles premieres of some of the Sundance Film Festival’s most talked-about films and NEXT FEST After Dark, Presented by Acura, featuring a 25th anniversary screening of Reservoir Dogs on restored 35mm and ceremony honoring Quentin Tarantino. More info, tickets ($15-35) and ticket packages are at sundance.

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.
Direct from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, these movies make their LA debuts alongside comedic and musical performances and Q&As moderated by special guests.

Park City, Utah — With exactly six months until Day One of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute today detailed a standalone Episodic section, the return of ‘The New Climate’ strand of environmental work and a new award. Feature film, short film, episodic and Virtual Reality submissions are now being accepted via Withoutabox, with early deadlines beginning August 7; more information about submissions and deadlines is at sundance.org/submit.

A story is a story is a story—or at least that’s how we see it. Last month we announced that the BBC World Service and Sundance Institute are inviting storytellers to submit original, essential, and thought-provoking audio documentary stories and treatments for a new, nonfiction radio broadcast and podcast series to launch in 2018 (click here to learn more and submit).We’re casting a wide net and calling on nonfiction storytellers across various mediums to submit their stories that explore the world as we experience it today.

At Sundance Institute, we are proud to have fostered a diverse community of creative storytellers for over three decades. We support and amplify independent creators who break new ground in film and other forms of media. Independent media creators make work that moves, informs, challenges, and inspires.

Music and Sound Design Lab 2016
Credit Brandon Joseph Baker

Music and Sound Design Lab 2014
Credit Steve Jennings

Music and Sound Design Lab 2016
Credit Brandon Joseph Baker

Los Angeles and Marin, CA — Sundance Institute and Skywalker Sound today announced the composers and directors selected for the Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs, which return to the legendary Skywalker Sound Facilities for the fifth year.

At the Labs, composers, directors and sound designers will collaborate to develop music and sound for documentary and narrative film projects. Workshops and creative exercises, guided by leading film composers and sound designers acting as Creative Advisors, will mentor Fellows to explore sound and music’s crucial role in storytelling.

Sundance NEXT FEST comes to LA this August for a summer celebration that brings you the LA premieres of films straight from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. We’re breaking down the lineup to help you choose from our full weekend of movies, music, and mischief. See the full lineup.

Athens, Greece: Christos V. Konstantakopoulos’ Faliro House Productions (The Founder, The Lobster), in collaboration with Sundance Institute, will host the second edition of the Faliro House | Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop in Costa Navarino, Greece July 3-9. The workshop is designed to support emerging filmmakers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and this year will include filmmakers from Cyprus.

You know how we indie filmmakers are, right? We’re pessimistic, worst-case thinkers. When I saw the schedule for the 2017 Financing & Strategy Intensive, my eyes fixated on those dreaded words: “Pitching Workshop.” I thought, OK, I’m staying home with my cat.

“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”—John DeweyIn the wake of two corporations pulling their funding from the Public Theater’s free production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, like many of my artist colleagues I have been pondering the grave resonances.Let me be clear.