Category: News

Los Angeles, CA – Sundance Institute and Jaunt Studios announced today their collaboration to launch a groundbreaking cinematic virtual reality residency program designed to empower artists on the cutting edge of storytelling. The first artist selected to participate in the six-month Sundance Institute New Frontier | Jaunt VR Residency Program is Lynette Wallworth, and three additional artists will be selected to participate in the coming months. Through this collaboration, Sundance Institute’s New Frontier program will continue a long tradition of cultivating new voices and innovative stories from the independent storytelling community, with Jaunt providing resident artists with the most advanced resources in cinematic virtual reality production.

Four 18-to-24-year-old Native Artists will Attend 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Develop Storytelling Skills and New Film Projects Throughout the Year
Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today the four 18-to-24-year-old Native American filmmakers — three from the Southwest and one from Michigan — selected for the 2016 Full Circle Fellowships. Following Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford’s original vision and commitment to supporting Native American artists, the Full Circle Fellowship program develops and supports young Native filmmakers and is part of the Institute’s year-round support offerings for Native artists at all stages of their careers.
The Full Circle Fellowship Program, launched last year with support from the W.

Sundance Institute’s first-ever workshop at IFP-Minnesota in St. Paul drew more than 40 emerging and experienced documentarians to a daylong series of instructional sessions last weekend.
As participants, some pitching projects, were treated to presentations on nonfiction storytelling structure and how to make regional stories relevant to larger audiences, running themes included the importance of preparedness and the need, according to Twin Cities native Annie Sundberg, to “keep your key audience in mind” at every stage of production.

As we prepare for yet another Sundance Film Festival, we thought we’d take some time to update you on everything you need to know about our ticketing system. Thank you for your continued interest in seeing world-class
independent films, panels, music, and New Frontier installations at the
2021 Festival. We look forward to seeing you in January!Through small (but important!) modifications to our system and extensive testing, we’re confident you’ll have a seamless experience this year.

New York, NY — Sundance Institute today announced the projects and artists participating in its two Fall artist development programs: the Alumni Writers Studio at Flying Point in Water Mill, NY, which ran October 4-11, as well as the two-week Theatre Lab for musical theatre, ensemble-generated projects and solo work at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), taking place November 8-22. Under the supervision of Artistic Director Philip Himberg and Producing Director Christopher Hibma, the initiatives are among the 24 residency Labs the Institute hosts each year for independent artists in theatre, film, new media and episodic content.
The Alumni Writers Studio at Flying Point offers four invited Theatre Program alumni and one Feature Film Program Alum an uninterrupted period of time and the space to work on their projects in a studio setting.

First and foremost, we’re sincerely sorry for the inconvenience you experienced with our ticketing system today. We’ve spent the last few weeks preparing for ticket sales to start today but experienced some very unfortunate (to put it mildly) technical issues beyond anything we could have anticipated. So we made the very difficult decision to stop the sale of passes and packages for the day so we can rectify the problems and restart the sale next week.

Art is intended to vanquish walls, not construct them. As is well documented in cinema, that struggle is an ongoing one. Among the lesser-publicized barriers in the film world is the factor of age, and today’s Sundance Ignite program announcement makes a go of mitigating that qualification.

Los Angeles, CA — Believing that 18-to-24-year-olds will lead us into our creative future with more than memes and Snapchats, Sundance Institute today announced a new project to inspire and connect young independent filmmakers and audiences. The Sundance Ignite program will offer 18-to-24-year-olds exclusive access to independent film and filmmaking experiences, including at the Sundance Film Festival, which over the course of its 30-year history has launched films such as Napoleon Dynamite, Jawbreaker, Tangerine, Heathers, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Dope, Bachelorette, Whiplash, The Spectacular Now, The Way, Way Back, The Blair Witch Project and SAW.
The Sundance Ignite program, with support from Adobe through its Project 1324 initiative, will host an online short film challenge for 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers, and five winners will attend the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced today that Sundance Film Forward will host free screenings of acclaimed independent films and moderated discussions and workshops with talented filmmakers October 20-23. The events will take place in a range of venues from the program’s host, the Bill Cosford Cinema at University of Miami, to small community centers, including branches of the Miami-Dade Public Library System.
Sundance Film Forward is a touring program of film screenings and discussions to excite and cultivate new audiences for independent film, with a special focus on 18- to 24-year-olds.

The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards were held last night and a number of films supported by Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program or the Sundance Film Festival made strong showings, as well as some individual awards for the likes of Viola Davis–whose Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy is the first for an African-American woman–and Uzo Aduba. One non-fiction title in particular from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival­–Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief–took home a handful of hardware. Check below for an updated list of Emmy-nominated films supported by Sundance Institute.

Los Angeles,CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 10 projects selected from more than 2,500 submissions for its second Episodic Story Lab, representing some of the most promising new writers creating TV and online series. The Lab supports first-time show creators and is one of 24 residency Labs the Institute hosts each year for independent artists in theatre, film, new media and episodic content.
Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Founding Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, with Jennifer Goyne Blake, Senior Manager of the Episodic Story Lab, Fellows will work with an accomplished group of showrunners, television executives and producers on developing their spec pilot and series overview.

You may be asking yourself, “What business does a film organization have meddling in a conversation about television awards shows?” Good question, loyal reader. One of the myriad benefits of living in this unofficial epoch of episodic television is that the crossover of talent between film and TV is stronger than ever. That means filmmakers like Cary Fukunaga can make a brilliant feature film debut with Sin Nombre, and a few years later helm an Emmy-winning investigative crime drama called True Detective (and yet all we can talk about are his debonair, man-braided ways).